Dawn of Chaos
by Mercenary Pen
Summary: Three years have passed since the royal cup, now it falls to warriors both new and old alike to prevent the resurgence of the unsanctioned battles that were considered a thing of the past. Please R&R people, and no flames!
1. Chapter 1: the Ruins

Dawn of Chaos  
  
Hi folks, this would be one of the first fic projects for me, Mercenary Pen, so if any of you flame me I will probably flame you back. Moreover I do not own Zoids, except for holding all patents and copyrights for various machines and power components that I have personally developed (among them such zoids as a Rev Raptor/Gunsniper hybrid). Now sit back and read, constructive criticism and questions will be accepted eagerly, but as I have already warned you, you flame = you pay the funeral expenses.  
  
Right, now you folks are after a bit of a short summary from me to start the ball rolling, so that's roughly what you'll get. Okay, here goes: This story, set approximately three years after the climactic victory of the Blitz team in the Royal cup, sees the creation of both a new group of heroic zoid pilots and out of the ashes of the remnants of the Back draft organisation a new group of villains, their intent... well I can't really tell you that just yet.  
  
Chapter One: The ruins  
  
Garth Meyer looked despondently out of the window. Beneath him the ground was blurring past, a vast expanse of tan coloured sand, as his father's Hovercargo sped across the vast central desert of the northern continent, its motors operating at their maximum safe potential. His father, the renowned Professor Karyl Meyer was in the middle of a groundbreaking study into the history of the Guylos war of two hundred years before, and hoped to prove, once and for all, that the famous zoids of the war either were given too much credit, in cases where the design was known to exist, for example the Blade Liger, Lightning Saix or the D-Bison, or that the design mentioned never truly existed, in the case of the Genosoarer, Genobreaker, Deathsoarer and the Deathstinger.  
  
(A/N The appearance of three Genosoarers during the Royal cup was kept very quiet by the Zoid Battle Commission)  
  
To this end the professor was taking his research team and his entire family to excavate the ruins of the republican Red river base, hoping that their computer records would not have corroded into illegibility.  
  
Garth sighed, his father knew that he wanted to become a zoid pilot and start up his own zoid team, but the professor was adamant, his son would learn a profession that involved actually using his brain, not just tinkering with machines. It was the way in which his father said it as much as anything else, his son, as if I were some thing to further his interests and not even a human being. At 15, Garth thought, I should not have to put up with this. All I hope is that there might be a combat capable zoid amongst the ruins, one I could use to start out on my own, to fend for myself.  
  
Just then came a familiar voice from behind him, "Still moping about the way your father treats you?"  
  
He breathed a sigh of relief; it was his uncle, Thorsten. Thorsten had, in his day, been a cargo transporter with his own zoid for protection, now he lived with the family, his Gordos remaining within the Hovercargo, gathering dust and no longer prompting the panicked retreats of bandits and business rivals alike, but instead prompting only fond reminiscences of the good old days.  
  
"Remember," uncle Thorsten told him, "your father only has what he thinks are your best interests at heart, don't be too harsh with him."  
  
Just as Garth was about to reply, his father's booming voice called out, "We're here, come take a look at this place brother."  
  
Uncle Thorsten stumped off towards the control room of the Hovercargo, Garth quietly following behind him. When they reached the control room, they found the professor staring at, not the ruins in front of them but instead at the dozens of black painted scorpion zoids- Guysacks that was it- that were streaming out of the ruins to surround them.  
  
A voice suddenly came over the radio, "This is the Red River Renegades. You are to consider yourselves our prisoners. We request that you hand over all zoids and weapons in your possession peacefully. We'd hate for you to get hurt."  
  
What will happen to Garth Meyer and his family? Will they be imprisoned by the red river renegades? Or will they meet a worse fate resisting capture? Find out in the next chapter of Dawn of Chaos. 


	2. Chapter 2: What Price Survival?

Hi folks, Mercenary Pen here. Now your average mercenary works for the money, but me, I'm working because I'm loyal to you folks, and also because I enjoy this sort of stuff. So in other words I'm still posting this story even though no one has actually bothered to review it yet. Please review, I'll even allow for moderate flames! Just be warned, I have set up a Justice field to govern extreme flames, so that your own flame gets you burned. Now, getting back to business, lets see whether Garth Meyer gets taken prisoner by the bandits, or whether something entirely different happens.  
  
Chapter Two: What price survival?  
  
"I will not abandon the quest of a lifetime," bellowed Karyl Meyer, professor of history at the university of Geigolos.  
  
His wife replied, in her quiet yet astoundingly clear voice, "Then Dearest, you have sentenced each one of us to death."  
  
"Not really," came a voice from behind them. "What you don't understand," continued the professor's brother, Thorsten, "is that the hovercargo has, as standard, about the thickest armour of just about any zoid known, as well as defensive gunnery turrets, and beyond that, my Gordos is fully armed and combat ready, and the excavation equipped zoids could come in handy too."  
  
"How so?" the professor asked, "those eight Godos units are only fitted with pile drivers, they can't knock out swarms of Guysacks! Besides, we only have pilots for seven of them if you plan to take the field in your Gordos."  
  
Garth's uncle replied almost conspiratorially, "I thought there was a chance we might run into trouble, so I bought an emergency arsenal for each of the Godos units, and in an emergency seven pilots are better than none!"  
  
Finally the matter was agreed and the professor had just one more thing to say, "Garth, I want you to go to your room and wait this out, you are not to leave until we tell you that everything is alright, do you understand?"  
  
Disappointed, Garth replied, "Yes Father".  
  
Then, spurred into action, the professor ran off, heading to take charge of one of the gun turrets of the Hovercargo.  
  
As Garth left to return to his room, his uncle beckoned him over, "Garth," he said, "I hate to go against your father, but I think someone ought to give you a chance. I want you to pilot the eighth Godos in battle for me."  
  
Hesitant for a moment, Garth finally decided to go for it and take his first step on the road to becoming a zoid warrior. Hastily following his uncle, he helped to lever open the crate in which the sixteen shoulder- mounted rifles were stored and to load them onto the gantry crane for fitting to the zoids. Meanwhile, his uncle, not one to waste even the slightest bit of time, was busy performing checks on his Gordos, and by the time the others were in the cockpits of their zoids he was moving out through the open front hatch to provide a volley of covering fire as they deployed their zoids.  
  
Immediately he let loose a mighty salvo from the two double-barrel pulse- laser cannons fitted to his zoid. "That's the thing about using a swarm of Guysacks in combat, they're almost impossible to miss with the first few volleys of shots, but it's virtually impossible to take out every single one of them without getting hurt badly yourself."  
  
The eight Godos units, all fully functional, disembarked the hovercargo, moving to either side as an immense barrage poured from the Vulcan-gun turrets at the top of the hovercargo. Then, as the Godos' turned to face the Guysacks, all hell broke loose as the Guysacks opened fire.  
  
"Hey, these guys aren't using standard guns," came the cry of shock from one Godos.  
  
Quickly the reply came from the Gordos, "Watch out men, those are pulse- lasers."  
  
Meanwhile, Garth was busy wrapped up in concentration, his mind focussed on trying to master keeping the balance of his zoid. Okay, he thought to himself, lets see whether we can make it through this without falling over. Hey, that's a Guysack, coming straight for me; it's almost in my sights, fire. With a moment of adulation he rejoiced, the body shell of the enemy zoid rupturing as his shells found their mark. Then in a wave of clarity he suddenly understood and began to battle in earnest.  
  
Advancing he fired off a volley of shells, turning as he did, to decimate an advancing line of bandits, the few he missed burrowing into the earth. Suddenly, he felt the zoid start to tip over. Sure enough a Guysack was surfacing from the ground beneath his left foot. In a moment of extreme exertion he forced that foot down, crushing the claws of the Guysack through the canopy of the zoid as if they were made of wood. A shot came from behind, barely missing the hip of his zoid. A line of bandits had now formed behind him and was advancing on him fast. Their pincers raised, these five zoids moved in trying to deal precise close-combat damage to put him out of commission. The Godos twisted beneath him, its tail swinging to either side, knocking the zoids behind him prone on their backs. Garth roared as he almost succumbed to the battle instincts of a zoid gone berserk and then abruptly the Guysacks were no more.  
  
Back in the ruins one of the bandits was making a report to their leader. "Honestly sir, our squads fell to a supercharged Gordos and eight Godos units, their pilots... one of the Godos' defeated twenty three of our Nightstinger Guysacks sir."  
  
"Then," replied the bandit leader, "we shall see how they fare against more powerful zoids."  
  
"What possessed you to take out a zoid into the conflict," demanded the professor of his son, "especially after promising me that you would stay in the transport, safe?"  
  
"It was my fault Karyl" came the voice of his uncle over the intercom, "I know all about your son's dream of becoming a zoid warrior, especially since the Blitz team won the royal cup in such style three years ago."  
  
"Uh, dad," Garth interrupted, "we seem to have some more company."  
  
"Give me the low-down," snapped his uncle, "what do we have incoming?" "Looks to be Dark Horns and Rev Raptors," he replied, "yes, that's a definite, four Dark Horns and eight Rev Raptors."  
  
"Okay then men, take aim at the 'Raptors first before turning your guns on the Dark Horns," came the order.  
  
"And Garth," came the professor's irate voice over the comm, "you keep yourself as safe as possible, we'll talk about this later, you understand."  
  
The enemy line formed, Rev Raptors forming the flanks of the bandits' Omega squad, their retractable blades extending as the Dark Horns, bristling with oversize weapons, took their place at the centre of the line. Then they charged, the Rev Raptors taking the lead as they raced to cripple their foes in close combat, although barely any got that far. Garth felt a surge of pride as his shells finally caught up with the evasion of a Rev Raptor, assessing the situation he saw that the remaining Rev Raptors were too close to his fellow pilots for him to be sure of any shot he might make against them. He turned his shots against one of the slower, more ungainly Dark Horns, a target lock confirming itself as he fired off two shells. The Dark Horn's main cannon turned, loosing a couple of bolts of energy, which disintegrated his shells before they reached the zoid. Turning, the Dark Horn he had targeted bore down on him as he tried to move aside to evade the Pulse cannon of the oncoming zoid. He fired, forcing his opponent's cannon to snap up and protect it as the Godos twisted, its tail smashing through the canopy of the oncoming zoid with a mighty heave.  
  
The Rev Raptors were gone now, but the other three Dark Horns were now converging upon him, firing. Suddenly, as he fired his last shell at one Dark Horn, the canopy heads up display blacked out and the message  
Command System Failure appeared on his screen before blanking out. He pulled the lever for the ejector seat, being thrown up, out of the cockpit just in time to hear the final, anguished roar of his Godos before, with the impact of another shot it was no more.  
  
Then, a salvo of shells ripped into the back of the three Dark Horns, destroying them utterly before they had the chance to turn. None of their pilots ejected, the explosions had been too quick. Finally, succumbing to the exertions of battle, Garth passed out.  
  
Will Garth survive the aftermath of battle, and if so will he be scarred for life by his experiences? Will his father, having seen his natural aptitude for piloting a zoid, relent and permit him to become a zoid warrior? Find out next time folks. 


	3. Chapter 3: The Beginning of a dream

Hey this is Mercenary Pen here, first a word of thanks to my fellow author Steam Detective, first for permitting me to use his concept of the Panzer Dragon zoid family, my member of which, the first ever, and the tenth most powerful, will appear in the next chapter or so, although the basic details of the arsenal for this zoid family have been tweaked ever so slightly to fit what I had in mind, but what can I say, all I've done has been to make the lasers a multi-modal weapon to encompass the auto-fire function and added a few highly unstable experimental weapons designs to my Panzer Dragon, there are some more additions/modifications but I shall send these as part of my review of your next chapter. Also thanks S.D. for finding the solution to why I wasn't getting any reviews until now, the problem has now been solved. Meanwhile lets get down to what everyone's here for, the story.  
  
Chapter 3: The beginning of a dream?  
  
The three of them sat in the conference room late into the night, discussing the events of the day just gone, but only now had the conversation heated up to any significant degree.  
  
"I won't back down on this brother," shouted Garth's uncle, trying to be heard over his brother's loud and narrow-minded arguments, "your son has the raw talent to become one of the best zoid pilots of the century, did you see the way he harnessed every weapon his zoid had to offer against a vastly superior force and damn well near won? With those skills I refuse to let you squander his abilities by throwing him into the stuffy confinement of a university whether he wants to go there or not."  
  
"But how can you risk the life of your only nephew quite like that?" protested Garth's mother shrilly, "given what that boy means to you, just to stick him into a zoid cockpit and hope that he survives when that boy has been the only thing that's kept you going during the years since your accident, unless your telling us that your legs have somehow healed or that our son has finally developed into the sort of nuisance that you feel must be killed at the first opportunity!"  
  
"If you'll let me speak," Garth's uncle roared, "I did what I did because my love for the boy is so great that I have to give him the opportunity to realise his dreams, even when the pair of you want him to be nothing so much as a reflection of that which you are, moreover I was not trying to get the boy killed and thought, apart from the colour, we were facing nothing more than standard Guysacks, which those most emphatically were not. However, now that young Garth has proven where his skills lie, I hope that the pair of you will actually consider letting him do something he is good at, rather than wasting your money for tutors to teach him anything that will keep the boy out of a zoid cockpit. Remember, if you don't try letting him achieve his potential, you may not have any way of stopping him from putting himself in serious danger when he finally snaps and decides to follow his dreams with or without your permission, the least you can do for the boy is think about it without considering it as something that is beneath your dignity as an intellectual," and with that Garth's uncle Thorsten swept from the room, or at least came as close as he could manage on his pair of crutches, not looking back as he left the pair of them to discuss this amongst themselves.  
  
Garth woke in his bedroom, wondering whether the battle he remembered so vividly had been a dream, or whether he had truly seen the death of both men and zoids alike.  
  
He began to pull himself up out of bed, looking round with still tired eyes to see that his mother was watching over him.  
  
"You're awake," she gasped, breathing a sigh of relief, "if you're feeling all right, I'd like to talk with you."  
  
"Sure," replied Garth, suppressing a yawn.  
  
"Your uncle tells us that your bravery and aptitude may well have saved our lives. He has stated quite emphatically that those outlaws were skilled enough that they could otherwise have broken through by sheer weight of numbers, not to mention that they had more advanced weapons fitted to their zoids than they had any right to have. Your father and I have decided that, after we get home from the expedition to the Red River base ruins, if you still want to, and I would urge you not to make a hasty decision on this matter, we will support you in your quest to become a skilled zoid warrior.  
  
"Thank you, mother. I shall seriously consider my choice, of that there can be no doubt," Garth replied.  
  
The next morning, at the crack of dawn, his father woke him. "Son," he said, "if you feel well enough, I would like you to join us on the excavation team."  
  
"Sure thing, dad," he replied, and jumped out of bed, frantically pulling on clothes as he did so.  
  
They walked together down to the hangar of the hovercargo, the father filling his son in with a list of casualties from the battle of, as it turned out, three days before. The first thing they did was to survey the site, as far as possible, on foot. Finding no sign either of intact zoid hangars or of the base's central computer system, they began to start the excavation of the ruins, the five remaining Godos units, once more fitted with excavation tools, carefully cutting through the topsoil to expose what might lie beneath the surface. This continued for the next couple of days, until Garth, who had, on a hunch, gone off into a different area of the ruins, found something.  
  
"Father," he reported, "I seem to have found a roof hatch in some building or another. Do I have your permission to investigate this further?"  
  
Surprisingly his father permitted him, his only stipulation being that he first try to find the base of the building, and that he enter the building from a side entrance if one presented itself. Bearing this in mind, he continued to excavate, first finding one of the walls of the building beneath his feet. As the day wore on, more of the other excavators began to join him, speeding up the excavation of this surprisingly intact building.  
  
Finally when no side entrance had been found to this structure, which appeared to be a high security fortified bunker, except for an armour- plated tunnel, which, according to geophysical scans, extended all the way beneath the cliffs, his father permitted him to use the roof hatch, if it was operable. Scurrying across a plank bridge that had been hastily erected to cross the trench in which all of the Godos' had been excavating, he reached the roof hatch that had been his first archaeological discovery. Sure enough, beside the main hatch, which was big enough to allow the entry of even a Whale King, their was a secondary hatch, just large enough for a man to fit through, its mechanism untouched by the excavation. Slowly but surely he opened the hatch, thankful for the existence of rustproof alloys when this base had been assembled. Tentatively, he lowered himself onto the ladder beneath the hatch, keeping radio contact with his father as he descended. Then he had reached the bottom of the enormous hangar. Around him stood a number of devices, most of them obviously developed for the purpose of research and testing, although there were also the more disconcerting sights of full-blown artillery emplacements that were mounted on rails leading to the area beneath the roof hatch, or rather beneath the elevator that led to the roof.  
  
Quickly recording the rest of the main hangar, he followed what felt like a physical call, entering the tunnel that led from the main building. The tunnel, it seemed, was big enough to accommodate a rank of ten Gojelos' side by side, and although it seemed to go on forever, he found after a four-hour trek, a chamber at the other end. The chamber contained a large number of upright tanks, each of which was drawing power from its own dedicated generator. Above them ran an observation gantry, a ladder reaching to it from the ground on either side. Also there was a large computer console in one corner of the chamber. Here there was also an elevator leading to the roof, although this one was far smaller, and seemed to be designed for the accommodation of such zoids as stormsworders and other airborne zoids.  
  
Still he felt that he was being called, indeed this time the feeling was even stronger than before. He climbed up to the gantry, taking care with the ladder that climbed to the gantry itself, although it was still completely sound. Then, walking along the gantry, he surveyed the immense upright tanks beneath him. Each of the tanks was filled with liquid, an oddly phosphorescent fluid that glowed in the comparative darkness of the chamber (Garth had brought only a flashlight with him and had not found a light switch yet). Within the fluid off the tanks, however, he saw silhouettes, dark blocky shapes that he thought...he was almost certain...he knew that they were zoids.  
  
Suddenly, one of the tanks began to drain, revealing the zoid within and instantly Garth knew that this zoid would be his partner, until death parted the pair of them.  
  
Ah isn't that sweet? No, not quite but it's a start. Now time for the usual selection of end of chapter questions: Will Garth choose to become a zoid warrior after all he's been through? Has he become too shell-shocked to be a high-ranking zoid warrior even if he still wants to? What design is his new zoid anyway? Mercenary Pen signing off. 


	4. Chapter 4: Of Decisions

Chapter Four: Of Decisions  
  
It had been a week since the end of the archaeological expedition and, courtesy of one of Garth's father's colleagues, they were travelling home by Whale King, having loaded the entire computer system of the base, and all of the newly created zoids onto the large, airborne transporter. Garth was deep in thought, as he had been for most of the journey home. In his dreams he saw time and again the deaths of both zoids and men, the same deaths he had seen after ejecting from the Godos he had piloted in battle, would he ever, he wondered, reach the point, in a zoid battle, where neither life nor death mattered to him anymore? Moreover, the zoid that was his new partner was like no zoid that anyone had seen before. How could he, of all people, manage to master a zoid that none had seen before?  
  
It was in the middle of one such session of brooding that his father called for him. Quickly he headed for the bridge section of the Whale King where his father and his father's colleague had been studying the base computer system day in day out, looking for clues to the identity of the numerous unknown designs of zoid that now filled the hangar bay of the Whale King.  
  
"Son, sit down," his father told him, "I don't believe I have ever properly introduced you to my colleague, Professor Adrik Grayson, so I shall take the time to do so now. Son, meet professor Grayson, professor of information storage and retrieval at the university of Geigolos. Adrik meet my son, Garth. Now, down to business. Garth, Adrik and I have been studying the computer system that we retrieved from the Red River base, and we have just stumbled across the technical blueprints for your zoid, the Dragowing. Your zoid, as you had no doubt already worked out, is a flying zoid of the dragon family. However, what you may not have known, indeed what you probably didn't know, is that the Dragowing was a wild zoid, in the final stages of formation, that was discovered in the secret base of an ancient Zoidian, a zoid that was destined to prove whether or not the phasing out of seemingly useless components in the ZNA makeup of a zoid would have beneficial effects on the power of the zoid itself, or if this process would damage the adaptability of a zoid beyond the ability of sheer power to counteract. As a result of this, the Dragowing should theoretically be more efficient than the vast majority of zoids, and also possesses an arsenal that is far more advanced than anything that has been produced even now. Son, I must now ask for your decision, do you truly wish to become a zoid warrior?"  
  
Garth hesitated for a second, but only a second before replying, "Yes father, I will become a zoid warrior."  
  
"Then," stated professor Grayson, we had better find a zoid team willing to take the boy. But first," he continued, "I had better teach him the mechanics of flying a zoid."  
  
That evening, all that Garth could do was take things easy after the intensive training he had been given alongside professor Grayson's personal Redler. Indeed, by the end of the session, his skills had begun to outstrip those of his mentor, with him hitting targets on the first pass, even at speeds of Mach 0.95.  
  
Overnight professor Meyer found himself tense, unable to sleep. He knew that he would have to report his findings almost immediately to the guardian force, whose abandoned base his son had discovered, and he would have to study the computer core that he had recovered far more thoroughly, for already he had found evidence that almost conclusively proved that zoids evolved in the wild to far more powerful forms than had ever been created under laboratory conditions, to the best of his knowledge, and proving the sheer power of zoids such as the Blade Liger and the near mythical Genosoarer, whose power had been downgraded by the academics over the last century or so as a lasting peace had been established, and the strange circumstances under which not one, but indeed six seemingly unique dragon type zoids had been found at the base were enough of a conundrum to have severely shaken even the professor's way of thinking, but now, he thought, he had better try and get some sleep, whether he felt tired or not, otherwise he would not have the strength for the full day ahead of him tomorrow.  
  
Next morning, the Whale King reached their home, a medium sized concrete bunker in the desert, large enough to house maybe three Whale Kings and all the necessary maintenance equipment for them, with a tall tower reaching up into the sky from the top of it. Their first task, that of disembarking all of their zoids, both old and new, from the Whale King went without a hitch and soon all that remained was the unloading of both the computer core that they were studying and their personal belongings. Garth's father beckoned him aside for a moment at that point, "Garth," he started, "last night I put up an advert looking for a zoid team that would be willing to have you and, when I checked this morning we had received three responses, let's go start checking them out shall we?"  
  
The pair of them adjourned to Professor Meyer 's office, where they made another check between them, in case anyone else had responded to their advert, but since the last check no new messages had been left. The teams that had left messages were the Raven, Hawk and Paladin teams, and the pair of them took the opportunity to look up these three teams in the database of the zoid battle commission, discovering that the Hawk team was the only team of the three that had any previous experience, while the Raven and Paladin teams were both starting from scratch, trying to get together the pilots and zoids to make a name for themselves when the year's zoid battle tournament began in about one month's time.  
  
The Hawk team, a relatively experienced zoid team whose choice of both zoids and pilots focussed on a ferocious aerial assault, had over the summer months bought a trio of the newly developed Stormsworder Phoenix- type and had trained to use the new design to its full advantage.  
  
The Raven team had been formed by the youngest son of the aristocratic Raven family, and this team would primarily be based around the use of the mighty zoids that this family had picked up in the years following the founding of this family at the end of the Guylos war 200 years before.  
  
The Paladin team, formed by a disparate group of friends had less financial security than even the vast majority of zoid teams, with most of their zoids so far having come either from various junk heaps or been loaned to them at least as a short term arrangement for testing purposes.  
  
Of all three teams the Paladin team looked least likely to advance in the ranking, and after he turned down the Hawk team (who apparently only wanted him as a pilot for a fourth stormsworder) the best team for him to join appeared to be the Raven team.  
  
The next morning, they started off for the interview arranged the previous day, which would take place upon the Raven estate. The pair of them hoisted themselves into the cockpit of the Dragowing, thankful that the technicians of the New Helic Republic had been farsighted enough to fit this zoid with a two-seater cockpit. Taking off at full speed, the Dragowing began to practice both targeting and manoeuvres on route, with Garth's effective top speed at absolute accuracy climbing to Mach 1.3 by the time they touched down outside the gates of the Raven estates.  
  
The estates owned by the Raven family were opulent to say the least. Indeed most would have described their grounds, which stood not twenty miles away from the capital of Geigolos, as palatial, their neatly manicured lawns making a welcome change from the scrubland that was found almost everywhere on the other side of their fence. In the middle of it all stood the white marble palace of the house Raven. The family's head groundskeeper met them at the gate, escorting them to a zoid hangar where they could park the Dragowing while they were here, and then, once their zoid was secure, he led them to the house. At the top of the stair that led to the front door of the house, Count Vincent Raven awaited them, walking sedately down the stairs to greet them as his groundskeeper returned to the keeping of his grounds.  
  
"Good morning to you, Professor," he exclaimed, shaking Garth's father firmly by the hand, "so, this is your son, who would become a zoid warrior. I should probably introduce the pair of you to my son, meet Andreas Raven, whose zoid team your son would join. Son, meet professor Karyl Meyer, and his son Garth. I hope you will show Garth the estate while me and his father discuss the arrangements in private."  
  
"Certainly father," replied Andreas, who at a height of five foot nine had jet black hair and a lean but well muscled physique. Behind him stood a machine, not large enough to be considered a full zoid, but of a similar appearance nonetheless. It was in appearance lizard like, with a body of black metal, yet with an almost blue sheen to it.  
  
"What is that thing?" Garth asked in puzzlement.  
  
"This," replied Andreas, "is Darkness, my organoid."  
  
"Your son has an organoid?" asked the Professor, who was still in earshot, "I thought they were only mythical constructions."  
  
"My dear Professor," count Raven replied, "there are many things in the world of zoids that have at some time or another been considered little more than myths. The experience of my family has been that the majority off these so-called myths are nothing but the truth. Come Professor, I shall show you our family's zoid museum."  
  
"That was going to be the first stop on our little tour," remarked Andreas, "come on."  
  
Soon they were inside an underground hangar that housed one of the largest and most diverse collections of zoids known to man.  
  
"Impressive," Karyl remarked, studying the first row of zoids.  
  
"Isn't it just," the count replied, a condescending expression upon his face. He then proceeded to lead them down the rows of zoids, pointing out everything from Blade Ligers to Gojelos' until, at the end he showed them the pride and joy of his collection, a Double-sworder, a pair of Genosoarers and a Genobreaker, all of which were fully functional.  
  
The morning continued, with it becoming all the more clear that all the Raven family wanted was the Dragowing, and that Garth was nothing more than an optional extra as far as they were concerned. So, politely but firmly Garth turned down membership in the Raven team, leaving him with only the Paladin Team as an option, given that no other zoid teams had responded to their advertisement of services for hire.  
  
The Paladin team, when they caught up with them, were in a small back street café having a cup of coffee. Their team, like most, already boasted three members and these took the form of a man in his mid twenties, thickly muscled and reaching a height of five foot seven with fair skin and blue eyes that darted about all over the place as well as a skinhead which didn't look out of place on him; a youth in his late teens, dark skinned and lean with brown eyes that seemed to look straight through you into your very soul and black dreadlocks, as such this six foot two pilot appeared to be very disconcerting at first; the third pilot seemed to contrast with the other two even more than the pair did with each other, for while the other two dressed in the practical jeans, vest and combat boots of zoid pilots, their jackets draped over the back of their chairs, she wore more expensive clothing in the form of a lightweight blouse and a more formal style of trouser on top of fashionable heeled boots, also wearing a single silver bracelet around one wrist. At five foot four she was the shortest member of the team but her age, as far as Garth could tell was at least a year greater than his own fifteen years and her fair skin and green eyes seemed to convey whole volumes of emotion without even trying while her shoulder length blonde hair looked perfectly natural rather than a peroxide blonde.  
  
"Hey, I was told that you guys are the Paladin team, is that right?" he inquired.  
  
"Depends on who's asking," the skinhead replied.  
  
"Yes we're the Paladin team," said the girl, suppressing a yawn as she did so.  
  
"Are we to take it you're the new zoid warrior who's looking to join the team?" asked the skinhead.  
  
"Yes, I am," answered Garth.  
  
"Any competition to snap you up as a pilot, dude?" asked the dark skinned youth.  
  
"No, they were only after either me or my zoid, not both," Garth replied.  
  
"Okay, dude, pending your agreement, your hired," stated the skinhead, "my name's Jake Sanders, the lady on my left is Adrianne Tovas, and the gentleman in the black is Mykkael Josephson, but he don't speak too much. Sit down dude, have a coffee on us, then we'll show you our base and our zoids."  
  
Sitting down he joined them willingly, ordering just an ordinary coffee, before Adrianne, noting his clothes, changed his order to some specific brand that she knew, telling him that if he just ordered coffee here he would get, instead of the delicately flavoured coffee he was used to, a brown sludge that looked like it could be used for stripping paint and a taste that was even worse.  
  
Afterwards, they took him over to their base, which was just on the outskirts of Geigolos, the three off them bouncing along in a jeep beneath him as he followed at low speed in his zoid. Their base, it seemed was a disused military bunker that had been constructed to protect against the abortive mobilisation of the Chazidi Free States barely ten years ago. Within it stood their zoids, a stripped-down Rev-Raptor, a white Liger Zero and an odd bear-like zoid, the like of which had not been seen before, which Jake explained was called an Ursazerk and was the first working prototype of its design.  
  
Reflecting back on this moment, Garth was able to see clearly that the members of the Paladin team respected him as an equal, creating a far better working environment than he would have had as a member of either the Hawk team or the Raven team. For better or for worse, the Paladin team, and all of the problems that it would face, were where he belonged now. 


	5. Chapter 5: Overwhelming Power

Okay everyone, this is mercenary pen here. As you presumably know from the previous chapter (If you have not read the previous chapter go and do so NOW) Garth Meyer is now a member of the Paladin team, which has a reasonable selection of powerful and rare new zoids.  
  
In response to the inquiry of the most loyal reviewer worldwide award, for three chapters in a row, regarding what the Dragowing actually looks like, I probably ought to reveal that the Dragowing is a green reptilian zoid, not much larger than a Redler and designed along a similar body shape, its wings of the folding variety like those of either bats or the traditional dragons of mediaeval fantasy, which are, coincidentally, my favourite variety of dragon, no offence meant but the oriental style just looks wrong to me.  
  
Now, I think it is time for the story to really get under way, enjoy.  
  
Chapter five: Overwhelming Power.  
  
It was the first battle of the year's zoid battle league for the Paladin team and they were facing off against the Titans team, a zoid battle team which continually demonstrated the power of their four high-performance zoids, an Iron Kong, a D-Bison, a Gojelos and a Power-boost Command Wolf. Surveying the skies from above, Garth could see beneath him the mighty zoids of the enemy, standing by for the fight that was about to commence, their weapons teeth and claws glinting in the intense sun that characterised this wasteland. Also beneath him he could see the Liger zero, resplendent in its white armour and sporting a double-barrel pulse laser cannon on its back as its primary arsenal. The bulky forms of the Ursazerk and the X-alpha Rev Raptor slowly advanced to the central area of the designated battlefield, both deadly in their own way and both ready to face the enemy.  
  
Suddenly, streaking down from above came the judge capsule, a white projectile that served as transportation for the judge mechanoids of the zoid battle commission. For a moment there Garth had mistaken the capsule for an incoming missile and had frantically searched around for what was attacking him. Then raising itself out of the crater caused by its impact, the capsule opened, revealing the single judge within and also the pulse cannons that had been fitted to the judge capsules for self-defence purposes following the debacle at the royal cup three years before, where only the actions of the blitz team and in particular Bit Cloud had saved the zoid battle commission from an ignominious demise.  
  
Ever ready for action, the judge immediately went about its business of preparing the battlefield, declaiming, "This area is restricted for zoid battles only. Will all unauthorised personnel move back outside the thirty- mile radius of this battlefield. Battlefield scanned, Battlefield set up. The Titans team versus the Paladin team, Battle Mode 0982. Ready, Fight."  
  
In an instant the battle was underway, the zoids of the two sides springing into action as they sought to outmanoeuvre their opponents right from the first moment. Beneath him Jake charged his Ursazerk straight for the Iron Kong in front of it, rearing to his hind legs in front of it, grappling the Iron Kong as it also reared. Mykkael and Adrianne were already on the move, circling right and left to catch their opponents between them. Suddenly an alarm went off in his cockpit, he glanced at his heads-up display, the Gojelos had launched a missile at him.  
  
Snapping out of his reverie, he rolled to port, evading the missile and beginning to accelerate, ready to attack. Suddenly he was the target of a veritable hailstorm of firepower, with missiles shells and blasts of energy all about him, but his reaction was instant and suddenly he wrenched the Dragowing into a climb, piloting it higher than any of the weapons firing at him could target. Then, he began a spiralling descent, accelerating until his speed gauge registered at Mach 2.1 and then dived, twisting his zoid inwards and across to draw fire and waste their shots before, as the zoid's operations display screen lit up with a green light to say that he was within firing range, he flipped his zoid bodily through 180 degrees until, now upside-down, he could bring the heavy laser cannons mounted in each wing assembly of the zoid to bear on the zoids beneath him. He jammed his fingers down upon the triggers, strafing everything in his path as coruscating lances of blue-tinted energy shot time and again from the wings of his zoid...only to be met by the walls of almost pink energy that were energy shields, his most decisive and accurately targeted shots being reflected at his very colleagues. Leaving only him of the entire Paladin team unscathed as the armour of the other zoids was melted to puddles that smouldered in the sand.  
  
How dare those scum turn his own assault against his team. "Jake, what's your status, report" he bawled through his comm, hoping fervently that his colleagues were all right.  
  
"This is Mykkael here," came a faint, gasping voice in reply, "all three of us are out of the battle, you're going to...have to go it solo now. Just...fry these...creeps."  
  
With that a strange calmness came over Garth and he suddenly knew that no matter what, these warriors would pay, big time. Later he would claim that this eerie calmness was the sign of someone truly berserk, but for now he only noticed the flashing suggestion on the operations display of his zoid as he circled the perimeter of the battlefield, once more accelerating- accelerating until his very bones sang with agony then, turning the Dragowing sharply inward he locked onto all four enemy zoids, shrieking with the last of his strength "Supernova Assault", his mighty novastorm laser cannons being joined by the power of a plasma flare, thrown in a continuous stream from the mouth of the Dragowing to melt through the shields of the falling Titans that vanished beneath him.  
  
Abruptly, his mind was once more his own, rather than the possession of his formidable anger. At that point, the judge, still charred from the wash of his deflected firepower, made an announcement, stating, "This battle is cancelled due to the use of illegal power components by the Titans team. The decision of the zoid battle commission is that the Titans team must pay for the repairs of both the zoids of the Paladin team and also this judge capsule, no discussion will be entered into."  
  
Garth looked forlornly down at the scene beneath him, watching as the zoids of both teams blazed and smouldered from the fire of his gunnery. Never again, he told himself, would he unleash the full destructive power of his ultimate assault, never again would he look on in battle as a zoid died, helpless to prevent the death of that zoid.  
  
Firstly, for those who do not recognise the power boost command wolf, that's perfectly okay by me, it only appeared in one episode of Chaotic Century, the one when Van and the rest reach New Helic City-I'm sorry folks but I don't know most of the episodes in any of the series' by name. However, by way of a little descriptive bit, I can tell you guys that it had a reinforced frame surrounding a larger cockpit, and several heavy cannon mounted on its back, mostly energy weapons.  
  
Oh yes and SD, the full quote is "May the force be with you always", and could you explain what exactly you mean by foreshadowing? Don't forget to say hi to knuckles for me, will you, while I make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to generate a hedgehog shaped zoid, because the shape just wouldn't be feasible with even the latest weapons technology that I have developed (at least the plausible stuff), however I have just now decided to pose a reader competition, giving out a mystery prize to the reader who creates the most plausible yet powerful hedgehog/echidna shaped zoid, the details of which must be submitted as part of a review, however unflattering, enraged, ecstatically happy the rest of the review might be, I'll even accept flames with suggested designs tacked on the end, mostly because I believe I should allow you to treat me the same way you'd want to be treated, so your flames will in the end only burn you! In short, flame me and you will be flamed back, given as that appears to be exactly the way you want me to treat you.  
  
Ah isn't that so nice of him not wanting to kill anything, ah well, MP saying see y'all later. Don't forget to write all those nice reviews now. 


	6. Chapter 6: Chaos at dawn

  
  
In response to the inquiry of the most loyal reviewer worldwide award, for three chapters in a row, regarding what the Dragowing actually looks like, I probably ought to reveal that the Dragowing is a green reptilian zoid, not much larger than a Redler and designed along a similar body shape, its wings of the folding variety like those of either bats or the traditional dragons of mediaeval fantasy, which are, coincidentally, my favourite variety of dragon, no offence meant but the oriental style just looks wrong to me.  
  
Now, I think it is time for the story to really get under way, enjoy.  
  
Chapter six: Chaos at Dawn.  
  
Despite the setbacks that the Paladin team experienced in their training schedule following their battle against the now relegated Titans team, they were now, two weeks after that battle, back on schedule and getting ready for the week of zoid battles that would see them catch up with the leading zoid teams of Division-B. Moreover, Garth's father was quietly backing the Paladin team with the technological advances made by various of his colleagues at the university of Geigolos, for example the new Ultimium alloy developed by the departments of applied metallurgy and military chemistry had replaced the standard armour plating of all four of their zoids, and the new bombs that had been designed for use by the Dragowing would ensure that Garth need never again resort to the use of such superpower assaults as had proven necessary against the Titans team.  
  
That morning they were on their way to face one of the higher-ranking teams of Division-B, the Dragons Team, whose three Redlers were almost unbeatable despite their strict adherence to the rules laid down by the zoid battle commission.  
  
The decision of the team last night had been to mobilise the Ursazerk, the Liger Zero and the X-alpha Rev Raptor against the Dragons Team, hoping that the anti-air capabilities of these three zoids proved a match for the Redlers that they would face. Before them stretched the battlefield, clothed with the false dawn that signified exactly how early in the day this battle was. But, although the Whale King that transported the zoids of the other team had arrived, their zoids were conspicuously absent from the skies around the Hovercargo that the Paladin team were renting.  
  
With a mighty crash the judge capsule landed and began to execute its duties. Still, the Redlers of the Dragons team did not appear. Then a message came in from the judge, reporting that the Redlers of the Dragons team had chosen that precise moment to enter cocoons of energy, beginning the process of evolution, the battle was cancelled.  
  
Breathing a sigh of relief, Garth surveyed the battlefield from the relative safety of the hovercargo, just drinking in the sight of the sunrise as it reflected off the still shiny Ultimium alloy armour of the zoids in front of him. The strange thing was, he noted, that the judge capsule had made, as yet, no attempt to return to orbit around Zi, instead staring intently westward towards an approaching black Whale King.  
  
The Whale King came in to hover directly above the ground just vacated by the Whale King of the Dragons team not a moment before. Suddenly, a very different demeanour apparent in the very way it acted, the judge announced, "This battle has been taken over by the Chaos Storm organisation, the blitz team versus the Phobos team," and sure enough, the whale king landed, releasing from its mouth hatch four zoids as it did so. "Any attempt to escape will result in your zoids being fired upon, battle mode 0999. Ready...fight!"  
  
"WHAT," Garth exclaimed, incredulously, "don't tell me we're actually going though with this you guys, we don't have the skill, the money or even the time to go getting ourselves into unsanctioned battles like this, guys, don't do this, I beg of you..."  
  
"Hate to tell you this Garth," replied Jake chagrined, "but with that judge catering to each and every whim those guys have it doesn't look like we have a choice, they sound like the sort of guys who probably would shoot us in the back if we tried to make a run for it too. What I don't get is how that judge comes to be serving such a group like that, I mean, hell, its not like they have any guns pointed at the judge, and the commission have armed all the judges since the royal cup to prevent unsanctioned battles like this."  
  
Before them stood a Guysack, what looked similar to a stealth viper, a Di- Mantis and an unknown spider-shaped zoid. These began firing, their guns spitting out lasers everywhere as they tried to quickly cripple the enemy.  
  
Garth began to take charge of the battle, calling out to his team-mates, "okay guys, these chaos storm guys are arrogant to think that they can defeat us but we need the combat practise anyway. Adrianne, you take the viper using your speed and strike laser claws; Mykkael, you have the Di- Mantis; Jake, take the Guysack if you would, then all four of us will take down the spider, copy?"  
  
"Copy that, Meyer," came the reply from Jake, who, despite his frankly lazy use of language the rest of the time, insisted on proper military protocol from them any time their zoids went into combat, "Acquiring target now. Get yourself to the catapult deck and prepare to mobilize upon my mark, over."  
  
With that Jake brought the Ursazerk around to face its attackers, ramming the controls forward hard to coax his zoid into its shambling run, firing the pair of heavy beam cannons attached to its back as he charged, only to find that despite his target locks none of his shots had hit its mark.  
  
Meanwhile the Liger Zero had its work cut out for it trying to defeat the Viper that it was pitted against, which kept diving underground spreading the scanner-fouling smoke that was the deadliest weapon of a viper, only to surface almost beneath the Liger Zero, the concealed blades along the length of its body extended in an attempt to cut through the plating of the Liger Zero.  
  
Mykkael and the Rev Raptor were however managing okay against the Di- Mantis, their artillery boxing even such an agile zoid as the Di-Mantis in, onto a head to head attack path with the Rev Raptor, whose blades swung out and energised at the last minute, cleaving the enemy zoid in two.  
  
"Huh," came a voice over the comm channel, "we were led to believe that you might be a challenge, it's a shame to have revealed the existence of the Raknix when you cannot even defeat the Strike Viper or the Nightstinger Guysack."  
  
"We'll see about that," muttered Garth to himself before calling, "'Wing to Zero, suggest you fall back to the Transport and modify to Experimental armour, over."  
  
"Zero to 'Wing, copy that, falling back to Transport, looks like 'Zerk could use a hand with the stinger, over and out."  
  
"Okay, lets get this show on the road, deploy catapult deck. Dragowing...here we go!" Garth exclaimed, ramming his arms into the control yoke of his zoid, the thrusters lighting up behind him and the wings unfurling as he took to the skies.  
  
"I see," broadcasted the pilot of the Raknix, "another zoid has launched in a pitiful attempt to defeat us...No matter, activate anti-air artillery and fire." Energy beams lanced upwards from the leg-joint mounted gunnery of the Raknix, not even causing turbulence for the Dragowing, which soared straight past the gunfire, accelerating to Mach one.  
  
At that precise moment the Ursazerk reared up on its hind legs, the strike laser claws upon its front legs glowing as it smashed back down on the main body of the Guysack, almost completely severing the cockpit from the rest of the zoid. The Nightstinger Guysack was no longer part of the battle.  
  
Meanwhile Mykkael's gunnery was proving no match for the Strike Viper, whose sensor-disrupting haze now covered most of the battlefield, even his on-target shots missing as the Strike Viper dived underground to evade them. Finally the haze thinned and his onboard computer locked onto the Strike Viper, he fired every gun he had at its base in the hope of hitting it as it dived back into the earth, only for it to, with a single convulsion, launch its body into the air, over Mykkael's barrage of energy before diving into the earth beneath him...and not emerging.  
  
The Liger Zero was by now ensconced within the modification deck that had been designed for this hovercargo, the Zero armour being removed to leave the zoid almost bare. Adrianne, having waited patiently for this moment, designated the modification armour for the Liger and activated the assembly sequence. She was now giving the first-ever combat test to the Liger Zero Mirage- a sand coloured zoid that combined midrange weapons with high-tech stealth systems designed specifically for desert conditions. Then, elevating her zoid to the catapult deck of the Hovercargo, she prepared to return to the fray, warming up the boosters of her zoid and activating its optical stealth system before she even reached the catapult deck. Then crying, "Liger Zero, here we go!" she launched herself from the catapult deck, activating the boosters of her zoid before her zoid even hit the ground. As her zoid began to move she activated the four-directional grenade launcher of the Mirage armour, launching off enormous clusters of a very special variety of grenade, none of which hit even one target.  
  
Then the strike viper, its pilot's patience worn thin, surfaced directly beneath Mykkael's Rev Raptor, tipping the zoid over on its side as Mykkael cried out, "Noooo, this can't be happening to me! My zoid can't get back on its feet!"  
  
"That's what you get for attempting to defeat the mighty Chaos Storm!" sneered the pilot of the Strike Viper, "What!" he then exclaimed, surprised, as what looked like little more than a dustcloud rammed into him from behind, a pair of yellow flashes all that gave away what it was as the Zero Mirage rammed its strike laser claws straight through the spinal conduit of the zoid, rendering it useless for the remainder of the battle.  
  
"So," remarked the pilot of the Raknix appreciatively, "Your zoids are more powerful than they appeared, but I have one major advantage, I can see right through the optical stealth of your Liger. Prepare to meet your doom!" and with that he unleashed a withering barrage of firepower at the zoids surrounding it.  
  
"This is 'wing reporting in, I tried bombing the Raknix but it has shields. I'll go in for another run to cover for you guys to get Jake back on his feet so he can use his tail gun, over." And with that Garth turned the Dragowing about, swooping in towards the Raknix with its Novastorm laser cannons throwing dozens of brilliant blue laser bolts at its target, each with very little energy, but in total they would force the spider like zoid to keep its shields raised for the remainder of the battle, draining its energy reserves until it could not even manage that much and would have to concede victory to them. But for now the Raknix was able to maintain a constant stream of fire targeted on the Liger Zero, not even the Mirage arsenal protecting it from the direct hits that were being dealt out. Finally Adrianne decided that enough was enough. "Activate Mirage Grenades." And suddenly the grenades that her Liger had strewn so liberally about the battlefield were activated, generating sensor distortions that would hide the Liger and any other optical stealth equipped zoids until they either got switched off or ran out of power in their batteries.  
  
Garth thought to himself, he was sure that he had been given his own new weaponry for disrupting energy shields without resorting to overwhelming firepower. Lets see, he thought, coming around for another pass, Depth charges-no; high explosives-well those might work but he was sure that his bomb bay held something better suited to the task at hand; aha, he thought, electro-magnetic pulse bombs, that was what I was looking for, trust that bloody Rev Raptor/Gunsniper hybrid to freeze up just when it was needed! He began his final attack run, noting that the heavy artillery of the Ursazerk was pounding away on the other side of his target, he pressed down the trigger for his rapid-fire lasers, his EMP bomb already ready for action as he slowed to guarantee his accuracy while bombing, and then, gliding over his opponent's zoid, he hit that second trigger, releasing the bomb which, even as the Dragowing accelerated away from its target, detonated, bringing down the shields of the Raknix, which then collapsed under the fire of Jake's heavy beam cannons, its fuel-cells rupturing to release vapour into the atmosphere. That zoid would not be doing anything soon.  
  
Will the Paladin team learn more about the chaos storm organisation? Will Garth get over his fear of killing enemies? Find out all this and much, much more in the next few chapters of Dawn of Chaos, and while you're at it please, please, PLEASE write a review! Ah well, failing that, and with apologies that this chapter was quite so long, Mercenary Pen signing off, ciao. 


	7. Chapter 7: A Legitimate Rivalry

A mysterious figure emerges from the smoking ruins of an enemy fortress, a rifle slung across his back and the wind catching his hair, it is Mercenary Pen. Hi folks!  
  
Firstly, to my loyal reviewer, steam detective, and his trusty sidekick knuckles, or is it my loyal reviewer knuckles and his trusty sidekick steam detective, well thanks for the criticism, I've carefully gone and improved chapters 2 to 6 since then, and also, as you pointed out, the optical stealth system is in principle illegal in the majority of official zoid battles, although since they upgraded the judge capsules a handful of battle modes have been developed to accommodate stealth equipped zoids, but this does not really matter because last chapter saw an unsanctioned zoid battle anyway, with the judge capsule having been taken over by means of a computer virus, also I have addressed the majority of your criticism, but possibly not all of it, so keep up the good work please, and given as you didn't get the John Doe reference last chapter, what I'll have to do is explain it to you, John Doe, or Jane Doe in the case of a woman, is the name given for the purposes of records to unidentifiable bodies at the morgue/ coroners office, thereafter expanding to become an all purpose term for someone whose name you don't know. Finally on the explanations front, evolution may not have been seen during the NC0 series of zoids but that does not mean that no-one knew about it, because documents on subjects such as this varying from lab reports to just about anything have ths way of randomly surviving the centuries. Moreover, as an explanation of why and how the Redlers of the Dragons team began the process of evolution during the last chapter, despite the team's lack of organoids, they had done some work of their own towards the creation of an integrated organoid system, only managing to create by this stage, a system that increased the evolutionary potential of their zoids, and that's that, no more complaints about evolution please, the first was, I suppose, well founded, but just you wait until the big two zoid warriors of NC0 get their evolved zoids...whoops I've said too much.  
  
Okay everybody, lets get underway. But, before we do, I'd like to introduce everyone to our professional zoid battle commentator, Irvine.  
  
(Irvine) Hey folks.  
  
Now Irvine, how does it feel to be watching zoid battles set almost 175 years after your death?  
  
(Irvine) A little disconcerting, but I reckon it's worth it just to see some of the technological advances. Overall, before you ask, I reckon that the Paladin team has the best selection of zoids of any team without huge amounts of money on their side cough cough Harry champ cough and their pilots have the potential to defeat even the much vaunted Blitz team. Now MP, are you going to get on and write the rest of the story or am I going to have to chase you in my Lightning Saix first?  
  
Okay, okay, I'll get on and write the thing, I hope you guys enjoy this.  
  
Chapter seven: A Legitimate Rivalry.  
  
Baron Friedrik Danthorn was late, he had been due to attend this meeting of the council of chaos with a view to their plans to revive the sentiment that the Backdraft organisation had tapped with their unsanctioned, unrefereed battles. But that had been almost an hour ago now.  
  
A crisis had arisen since then with an unsanctioned battle against the Paladin going well and truly awry and Baron Danthorn, as head of intelligence for the Chaos Storm organisation had taken it upon himself to make a study of the recordings from the zoids involved in the battle. Now he was rushing to the council chamber, a plan to defeat the Paladin team in hand, ready for the approval of the other council members.  
  
Finally, flinging the doors wide, he entered, striding straight to his seat where he sat down, as if his behaviour was only to be expected.  
  
"How good of you to join us," remarked the chairman as the previous matter of discussion was closed, "I believe that we all know why you have not been part of our discussions this last hour so may we take it that you have a solution to propose for the problem that the Paladin team may turn out to be."  
  
"Indeed," began the Baron, "the issue at hand is likely to be a challenge for all of us. The Paladin team possesses four powerful zoids, which I shall cover so that we are all conversant with these mighty machines: Fist we have the Liger Zero, a zoid with which some of our earlier members, such as Commander Altyle on my right, are already conversant, now in their battle against Squadron Phobos the Paladin's used a new modification armour for this zoid which our research units have tentatively identified as the Liger Zero Mirage variant, which appears to possess an optical stealth system as well as a specialist weapon that permits it to jam all non-visual sensor systems with interference." "The Liger Zero is an incredibly rare zoid," remarked the chairman, "where did the Paladin team acquire theirs?"  
  
"An excellent question my lord, and one I have already asked. It turns out that the Liger Zero pilot is the daughter of the engineer who does heavy maintenance and construction of spare parts for the Liger Zero, the rest of the story is clear to see. Meanwhile the second zoid of the Paladin team appears to be a hybrid zoid, containing a synthesis of the arsenals of both the Rev Raptor and the Gunsniper; this zoid has proved that, although it is powerful and has a well-designed armament, it cannot get back upright if knocked onto its side and has a command system that is prone to freezing at the slightest hint of serious trouble. The third zoid is perhaps one of the most unusual zoids yet developed and is a brand new zoid known as the Ursazerk. This zoid possesses the form of a black bear and is in some ways similar to the Iron Kong, notably in the facts that it does most of its movement on all four legs, but can in battle raise itself up on its rear legs, using the Strike Laser Claw equipped front legs as a close combat weapon. Its arsenal is completed by a pair of heavy beam cannons mounted on the back of the zoid and a variable angle rocket launcher mounted in the zoid's belly compartment, as well as an energy shield which can withstand all but the deadliest of assaults."  
  
"And the final zoid?" prompted Commander Altyle.  
  
"The final zoid is like nothing we have seen before. Referred to as the Dragowing, this zoid takes the form of a dragon. Indeed, our analysts have suggested that this zoid may be one of the legendary Panzer Dragons, dragon- type zoids which have undergone streamlined evolutions to remove from their ZNA the codes for any useless technology, thus making them incredibly deadly when in their element, but reduces the adaptability of the Zoid to virtually nil. In analysis the Dragowing can be said to have power, speed, manoeuvrability and endurance lacked by most of the more versatile zoids, with the ability to disrupt the shielding of a zoid as well as the capacity for strafing, bombing and dogfighting in equal measure. This is by far the deadliest zoid that the Paladin team has, and as such our plans must be designed to put it at the greatest possible disadvantage."  
  
"Agreed," spoke a new voice, that of Sean O'Harris, Chief Executive of a major betting corporation, "if we are to rig this match against the Paladin team, we must covertly disadvantage their star players before they can use their strengths to take control of the battle, and also we must arrange this in such a way that they could not, under any circumstances, suspect us of foul play."  
  
"I have it," remarked yet another voice within the darkened room, that of Ambassador Paxton of the Helic Republic, "how about using one of the zoid battle teams which we have influence with, leading to a victory for us right under the noses of the Zoid Battle Commission. Such a team would be given exactly the right zoids for the task, we would dictate the battle mode and location and that would be the end of the Paladin Team as opposition."  
  
There, that wasn't too bad now, was it? (Irvine) I quit! From now on you can tell your own stories without my help. The agreement was that I sat in any time that the Paladins got into a zoid battle, not that I sat through various plots to obliterate them. Aims rifle at MP's head  
  
Oh no you don't Irvine. Have you heard the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword?" Pulls pen out of jacket pocket. Well let's see, I say that the pen is mightier than you, your rifle and your zoid all put together...starts writing.  
  
Suddenly, Irvine is wearing a clown costume, hopping on the spot and juggling hand grenades. His Lightning Saix has a bow of fluorescent green ribbon tied around its neck.  
  
Don't try this at home folks, Mercenary Pen signing off. 


	8. Chapter 8: A Brief Intelude

Okay, I know it's been a while since I last did this, but this is just the refresher course: I do not own Zoids, the various pre-existing characters of the zoids universe, several acres of land on the moon (or the large military installation that might be found on/beneath said acres of land on the moon) or certain of the things I am due to be putting into this next chapter, a fuller list of which will be found at the end of the chapter. Remember this, there'll be a test on it right at the end of the story.  
  
Right, that's most of the legal nonsense out of the way, and yes, this is yours truly, Mercenary Pen The crowd goes wild. Thank you, Thank you, nice to know that I'm at least partway appreciated.  
  
Also, thanks to Steam Detective, and...wait for it...other people for reviewing recently, notably TXLonestar. Welcome TXLS, to the award ceremony for people who review my non-participation fiction. And the award for the best new reviewer of the week goes to TXLonestar. Okay, now, to answer a few enquiries that have recently been made, the reason that Garth has been quite this successful is that he used to go down the arcades and put himself in the various zoid simulators there, although he's due for some really tough matches relatively soon, I swear to you. The rest of his seeming proficiency comes from the sheer potential of the Dragowing itself, although he has not yet unleashed anything more than about 50% of its full potential.  
  
Now lets get on with the story shall we.  
  
Chapter Eight: A brief interlude.  
  
Garth slipped out through the back door of the bunker when he was certain no one was watching. He was wearing a leather jacket, jeans, combat boots and a black T-shirt proclaiming across its front "Punks not dead". His hair, unlike usual, was gelled up into the three inch spikes of a Mohawk, rather than the flat, sensible hairstyle that he usually wore in combat situations. Outside he flung himself over the motorcycle that he had but recently bought, revving up the engine before he got underway. Then, in a flash, he was off ducking under the tail of a Gunsniper that was just returning from its zoid battle earlier that day, (A/N The team had lost and had been forced to sell their Gustav to make ends meet.) very soon he was roaring through the industrial estates on the outskirts of Geigolos, the wind in his hair, although, given the amount of gel in his hair no one would have noticed the wind by looking at it.  
  
Finally he arrived at his destination, a grimy looking pub, whose signs announced that a popular covers band, the Effects, were due to be playing here tonight. Although it was true that the majority of zoid pilots had little interest in Music at all, with an even smaller percentage of those that were musically interested having any interest in Punk rock, Garth was one of the few zoid warriors who consistently bucked this sort of trend, not through deliberate action but through coincidence.  
  
Walking inside he found that although the gig wasn't due to start for another hour or so, the building, which was cleaner on the inside than it was on the outside, was already half full with interested listeners, most of whom were chatting amiably and drinking, despite their intimidating appearance.  
  
Near the stage that had been set up for the evening stood two people who might as well have been ghosts for all the fright they gave him, it was none other than his two colleagues, Jake and Adrianne, wearing clothes that made them blend in with the crowd, each wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Their hair however, was arranged differently than his, Jake demonstrating his skinhead while Adrianne would not have suited a Mohawk anyway. "Hey, Garth you never said you were coming out tonight," Jake shouted.  
  
"Neither did the pair of you," Garth replied, "in fact neither of you said that Punk was your scene, otherwise I would have talked with you about it."  
  
"We wouldn't have missed this gig for the world Garth," said Adrianne, "this is literally the place to be seen tonight."  
  
"You know dudes," began Garth after they had covered the basics of why they were all here, "in battle it's a bit cumbersome to use our first names when talking, and call signs by name of zoid can be a little too easily mistaken sometimes, perhaps we ought to create official call signs within the team."  
  
"I see," muttered Jake, "point taken, I've been wondering why you've taken so long to respond to some of my hails in the last couple of battles. Perhaps if each of us takes, say, one of the four mythological elements as a call sign, you know earth, wind, fire and water. How does that suit you?"  
  
"I'll think about it, dude," Garth promised.  
  
At that moment the band arrived on stage, entering under blackout to fill spotlights that flickered on as they reached their positions. The concert began, the band starting off their set with a cover of "Soul Doubt" by NOFX before breaking into "Million Miles Away" by the Offspring. The crowd went wild, the evening passing by as the guitars of the band pumped out riffs that you could feel, meaning that even if deaf people had filled the audience they would have experienced something.  
  
During the concert Garth found himself jostled by a group of youths, all wearing the same motif on the back of their leather jackets, that of the Hellfire syndicate, an organised crime syndicate which practically controlled the underworld of the Guylos empire. Fed up with being continually jostled, Garth grabbed one of the toughs surrounding him, holding the guy off the floor by the collar of his leather jacket and said, his voice little more than a snarl, "tell your friends to give it a rest and go home!"  
  
"Why don't you tell his friends yourself," came a voice from behind him, "now put my man down and turn around slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them."  
  
Turning around to face the man behind him, Garth let go of the man he had been holding, letting him drop slowly to the floor. In front of him now stood a man wearing exactly the same clothes as the toughs that had surrounded him, his skin so pale that only his dark eyes-Garth could not tell their colour in the dark here-gave him away as something other than an albino. This man's hair was non-existent apart from a closely cropped beard and moustache, both of which were a light brown in colour.  
  
"Good evening, young man," said the man, his facial expression belying the civility of his voice, "Now we have to arrange some retribution for your actions, but I am a sporting man, and I do believe that you are a professional zoid pilot, so I'm willing to make a wager with you. You will face off, alone, against myself and four of my zoid pilots in a zoid battle, using a zoid selected from our collection, if you win, we'll let you off, if you lose we get to take your own zoid."  
  
"What are the alternatives?" asked Garth.  
  
"Either you agree to our little wager or we beat you up a bit here and now, it's your decision," the man replied.  
  
"Okay, I'll take the wager," said Garth looking around at the toughs who had him surrounded.  
  
"Right, come with me then, let's get this done here and now."  
  
He was escorted outside.  
  
Hey folks, its MP back again, and for English readers, that stands for Mercenary Pen, not Member of Parliament. Can Garth Meyer do anything but get into trouble? Has he bitten off more than he can chew this time? Will he manage to keep his zoid? Find out in the next chapter of Dawn of chaos.  
  
Also, here comes the fuller disclaimer that I promised: As well as not owning zoids, I do not own punk rock, nor do I own any punk rock bands. Most especially I do not own either NOFX or the Offspring, nor do I own any songs that they have written, e.g. those mentioned above.  
  
Warning, more legal type junk here, but I probably need to stick it in anyway. Ducks as thought police walk past  
  
Moreover I must take the time now to warn you that Punk rock is very offensive and remarkably subversive. I cannot recommend such to anyone who is easily offended, indeed the band NOFX have at one time been investigated by the FBI for supposed incitement against the office of the president (really it is not the office they have problems with, just the man in the office). MP signing off. 


	9. Chapter 9: The Gauntlet

(Moonbay) Now where has that poor excuse for a writer got to? I mean, I graciously offer to fill in for Irvine, who's still trying to get over his trauma from his last interview with this guy, you'd think the least this guy could do is actually turn up on time for his own story! Now, look everyone, I'm as fed up of waiting to start this chapter as I'm sure you are, so let's get started with this anyway, this so-called Mercenary Pen can explain himself when he actually bothers to turn up.  
  
Chapter nine: The Gauntlet.  
  
Garth was led to a seemingly abandoned warehouse, blindfolded for much of the way. Inside there were dozens of fully-armed and fully-equipped combat zoids, most of them in operable condition, although some were undergoing repairs at the time.  
  
"Now," asked the boss of the Hellfire syndicate, the man known to most only as the fallen one, "let's get down to business, which zoid do you choose for our little melee?"  
  
Walking down the line of zoids, Garth examined each in turn, finally selecting a specially enhanced Iron Kong for his night's work. Armed with a heavy pulse cannon, a Vulcan gun containing what looked like armour- piercing rounds, and a pair of retractable energised blades in the forearms of the zoid, this machine would prove a very useful tonight if only he could bring out its full potential.  
  
"Good, good," the Fallen one replied, "now let us see how you fare against the six zoids that my men have selected."  
  
Within moments he was outside the city in the Iron Kong he had selected, admiring the other optional extras that had been fitted to it, whether the component in question was a multispectral sensor array or an emergency use booster, he tried to work out how these components would help him defend against the six pilots who, in just a moment, would attempt to slaughter him wholesale.  
  
Sure enough they arrived within the space of a minute, two of them Spinosappers, which would have to be his first targets when they got in close to try and slice his zoid into pieces. The next pair were Gunsnipers, which moved into positions from which they could box his zoid in if he tried to escape the embrace of the Spinosappers. The third and final pair of zoids were an optical stealthed pair of hellcats, which showed up only on the multispectral scanners of this Iron Kong.  
  
"Now," came the voice of the Fallen One, "we shall see exactly how good a zoid pilot you actually are, defend yourself!"  
  
The six zoids sprang to life, the Hellcats firing off early volleys from either side which lacked both the power and the accuracy to punch through the traditionally thick armour of the Iron Kong, the Spinosappers waddling slowly towards him while he was bracing his zoid for the onslaught. Suddenly, snapping his pulse cannon into position he fired three blasts in quick succession, the Spinosapper that was his target rocking back under the force of the blasts but remaining upright, its armour still intact. He switched to his Vulcan cannon, pumping armour-piercing shells into his target as he dived to one side to evade the energy saw that crashed down on him from behind. Now with one Spinosapper down, its pilot ejecting in a hurry, Garth had the problem of trying to turn round safely to attack the Spinosappers behind him. As he dodged to his right to dodge yet another energy saw he reached forward, his Iron Kong lifting the defunct Spinosapper in front of him bodily, he turned, throwing his cargo at the second Spinosapper with a mighty heave, roaring "take that you scum" as he did so.  
  
(Moonbay) The Author would like to remind you that Garth has, until now, led an incredibly sheltered life, so no gratuitous use of swear words. Unfortunately the author hasn't actually got here to say it, so it hasn't really been said, okay. Now folks let's just get back to the story.  
  
Mercenary Pen run's into the chapter, gasping for breath, sorry I'm late folks-Oh, you started the chapter without me, did you. Moonbay, why are you frowning at me? Ah, its gonna be another one of Those days. Hey, you guys, keep on reading the chapter while I sort things out here, will you.  
  
Garth snapped off a couple of seconds of continuous fire from his Vulcan Cannon, punching a stream of shells through the defunct Spinosapper to hit the one that was still functional, which had been using its immobilised colleague for defensive cover. As the pilot of this second Spinosapper ejected, both zoids toppling back into the sand beneath them, the Gunsnipers behind them fired, both using the armour piercing shells of their tail guns to try and take him out. Garth activated the booster on the back of his Iron Kong to throw himself forwards out of the crossfire, only his zoid's right shoulder being grazed by the glancing impact of an armour piercing shell. The Gunsnipers turned, disengaging their foot locks to try and engage the Iron Kong that was closing on them with their main assault weapons.  
  
"Too late," chuckled Garth coldly as he turned his zoid, releasing the full force of both his pulse- and Vulcan-cannons on one of the Gunsnipers, causing it to fall to the ground, sparks flying from the freshly exposed hip of the zoid. Then, whirling the Iron Kong around to face the Gunsniper behind him, his zoid literally, very much by accident, punched straight through an armour-piercing bullet where the 'sniper behind him had set up his tail gun again.  
  
Without warning, a loud voice interrupted their combat, its deep, hollow tones booming through the speakers of all of the zoids on the field, crying out, "I see, having a little war here are we? What happened to inviting along the might of the Chaos Storm? Due to your frankly impolite behaviour we will have to teach you some manners. Prepare to taste the wrath of the Asp team, who will obliterate you, allowing us to claim both you zoids and your territory. Get ready TO LOSE!!!"  
  
"This is Iron Kong to Hellfire leader," Garth shouted through the microphone in his zoid's cockpit, "suggest that we call a truce for now. I've faced off against the Chaos Storm before. If you buy me some time I'll go fetch reinforcements to back you guys up."  
  
"Agreed," came back the terse reply, "but I'm sending my Lieutenant with you to make sure that you don't double-cross us."  
  
Hey folks, that's all of that for now, now let's see if things have settled down enough for the planned interview with Moonbay.  
  
(Moonbay) You double crossing S.O.B. you never said anything about time travel! I'll get you for this! Pulls out bazooka  
  
Uh-uh Moonbay, you remember what happened to Irvine when he pulled a weapon on me. Pen materialises in hand, MP already has notebook in other hand.  
  
(Moonbay) Yes, but you have forgotten rule one, here, read this.  
  
Moonbay hands MP official looking piece of paper.  
  
Rule 1: The woman is always right!  
  
Yes, I had forgotten about that, Moonbay, but you have forgotten something equally important, Puts pen down I make the rules here!  
  
Moonbay suddenly finds herself wearing a pink chicken outfit and dancing embarrassingly. Her hair is covered with jelly (that's jello for any Americans out there-and hello from England).  
  
Now, for the people out there who have nothing better to do than review my story, firstly, to Kegger007, hey, I didn't know that you had MP's in Canada, also, thanks for bearing with me, just as a reminder, the battles are gonna get way tougher from here on in, especially when the Paladins advance up to class A (they're only class B at the moment)- and finally to everyone who thought that Garth's friends should have looked out for him just a little better, they got cut off from him, you know how it can be sometimes. Anyhow, Mercenary Pen signing off before the time travelling lynch mob arrives. 


	10. Chapter 10: Allances of Darkness and Lig...

Hey everyone, Its MP here again. What's that I hear, you thought that poor old Moonbay was going to kill me after the last chapter. No chance, she's receiving all of the appropriate care in a padded cell right beside the one the doctor's put Irvine in. The doctors have even agreed to give me a warning if either or both of them get(s) out.  
  
Anyhow, now to talk with some of my (not quite) adoring fans:  
  
Khalsin: Hey, thanks for the rating of my story and hope you take the opportunity to read a little further than chapter 5 dude.  
  
Kegger007: Glad you like the use of Spinosappers, etc. hope you enjoy the conclusion to that sequence.  
  
The rest of y'all, keep reading and maybe get yourself some author alerts on my story, if I'm on a roll you'll probably need them to keep pace with me, also, any of you who're reading my other fic, the next chapter may take a while, I'm busy building a huge bunch of characters to fill out the main company in the story, and when you find yourself generating ten or more characters from scratch, it takes time as I'm sure many of you can appreciate.  
  
Chapter 10: Alliances of Darkness and light.  
  
The Hellcat and the Iron Kong charged headlong through the starlit streets of Geigolos, the pounding of their approaching forms enough to clear the streets ahead of them all the way to the pub that Garth had been forcibly abducted from only two and a half hours before. Now, however its customers were leaving, even the fact of a live band performance not having stopped the owner from closing up at the same time as always. On the street beneath him Garth could readily see his team-mates, the pair of them staggering down the streets, singing badly out of tune and barely coherently, some reinforcements they'd turn out to be! Moreover, if he didn't at least make an attempt to get them home safely, would he be able to live with himself afterwards? Probably not, ah well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Hurriedly he jumped out of his cockpit, bundling his comrades into the back seat of the Hellcat beside them, hurriedly promising to pay for the cleaning up of the zoid's upholstery and everything if either of the pair were sick on the way home, not that they would be of course, but he had to do something to reassure his reluctant colleague. That, however, was all hope of reinforcements out the window, given that Mykkael wouldn't leave his team-mates at home drunk, and the two of them would be nothing but liabilities if he tried to stick them in their zoids and take them with him. Unless... yes, that might just work. As they continued on their way to the base of the Paladin team, Garth got into contact with his uncle Thorsten who agreed to hustle over to the Paladin team base and look after Jake and Adrianne when they arrived, lending Mykkael his zoid for the engagement to come.  
  
Within five minutes they reached the reinforced bunker that was the base of the Paladin team, offloading both Jake and Adrianne into the able hands of Garth's uncle, whose wounded leg was all that kept him from being just as much of a daredevil as he had been in his youth, restricting him to zoid battles that were in self-defence, and those occurred only rarely.  
  
Mykkael, more vocal than usual with complaints that he had been ousted from his bed, hauled himself bodily into the cockpit of the supercharged Gordos that stood before him, sizing up its arsenal as Garth parked the Iron Kong, transferring to the Dragowing that he might truly hold his end of the bargain.  
  
Within moments, the three of them were underway, the Hellcat and Gordos each advancing at their own pace as the Dragowing soared straight over the city to reach the battlefield. Beneath him, as he arrived, Garth watched as the few remaining units of the Hellfire syndicate forces tied to defend against the more numerous, more powerful forces of the Chaos Storm, a ragtag bunch of Hellcats, Iron Kongs and Zabers being all that remained of the armies of this mighty syndicate.  
  
"This is Dragowing to Hellfire leader," Garth called over his radio, "The first phase of reinforcements has arrived, what's the situation here?" "Dragowing, this is Hellfire leader," came the crackling reply, "we couldn't handle them, they came from beneath-"and then his voice was cut off abruptly as from the ground emerged a Strike Viper, throwing a Hellcat up into the air, firing on it as it fell to the earth below.  
  
With a roar Garth sprang into action, swinging his zoid into an attack run, ordering all of the Hellfire zoids to get out of the way as his laser cannons spat blue high energy bolts at the strike viper beneath him, melting through the armoured sections that made up the base of the zoid.  
  
Suddenly he came under fire from another two Strike Vipers that had surfaced behind him, their repeating shock cannons rocking the Dragowing with fire as Garth began to pull it out of the low altitude pass it had made to hit the previous Strike Viper, climbing almost vertically to get out of the gunnery range of the vipers' shock cannons. Then, inverting his zoid, he spat his own return volley of blue laser fire- right into the spots where the Strike Vipers had been-they had returned to the bowels of the earth in preparation for another attack.  
  
"Damn you," cursed Garth, "I'll get you bastards if its the last thing I do! If only I had a weapon that could turn corners, or even just follow your tunnel."  
  
He thought, remaining at high altitude so that he could think safely and respond to enemy attacks- but no- the enemy had gone to ground. Then, wondering in his anger why he had not thought of it before, he came up with the ideal weapon for the job, the Plasma Flare cannon in the mouth aperture of his zoid, the weapon which combined with the power of his laser cannons had formed the mighty supernova assault of the Dragowing, which projected a flame of burning plasma which would fill the Vipers' tunnels and melt those zoids down to a heap of smouldering slag. Steeling himself for what he had to do, he began his low pass, his Plasma flare ready to deal the fatal blasts that would completely annihilate the remaining Strike Vipers. As he brought his zoid to a hovering halt, Garth heard the muted clank of church bells as they tolled a death knell, somehow this seemed appropriate but Garth as he pulled the trigger hoped that this attack would not prove the death of his conscience. As the Dragowing hovered, its mouth open, its wings unfurled to catch what little light the encroaching false dawn brought in their solar converter cells, which would provide backup power while the main power of the zoid fuelled the mighty plasma weapon that would ensure the defeat of these operatives of the Chaos Storm organisation. Slowly but surely the mouth of the Dragowing glowed with a nimbus of silver energy, which, once it finished coalescing, lanced out, straight into the hole that this first Viper had tunnelled, each grain of sand that it touched metamorphosing into charred glass under the intense heat, soon evaporating as the temperature of the plasma stream rose. Within moments, both strike vipers had been obliterated by the sheer heat of the plasma, their smoking remnants but puddles of liquefied alloys, both pilots having burned without a trace, unable to eject from their cockpits. The Dragowing, its energy cells drained, drifted from the sky to come to rest on the smouldering form of the desert beneath him.  
  
"Huh," sneered the voice of the Chaos Storm commander, "you drained your zoid of all its power in that last assault; now prepare to lose it forever!"  
  
With that the Whale King at the edge of the battlefield opened the hatch that was its mouth, releasing a swarm of zoids, modified Cannon Tortoises it looked like, although Garth could not be certain given how dizzy he was feeling.  
  
"This stops now!" roared the familiar voice of the Hellcat operating Hellfire lieutenant as he and Mykkael arrived on the field of battle. And with that both the Hellcat and the Gordos opened fire, their cannons rupturing even the heavy armour of the slow tortoise shaped zoids.  
  
Sensing that continuing the battle would cost them more than it would gain them, the Chaos Storm forces retreated, self destructing their remaining zoids so as not to leave many clues for when the local police moved in to examine the site.  
  
The next day, Garth was at the bedside of the Fallen one, comforting the gravely wounded man during his last hours of life. Beside him, the selfsame Lieutenant that had saved his life the previous night sat, receiving last instructions from his leader before it was finally down to him to take charge of the Hellfire Syndicate. The name of this Lieutenant, it turned out, was Antonio Darker, and he was a wiry-framed young man whose tall body was topped by black hair that flowed down to just below his shoulders. Like any of the other members of the Hellfire syndicate he wore black leather trousers of the type originally worn by bikers and a black sleeveless T- Shirt with a fire motif on it.  
  
Turning to Garth, he began to speak, his voice using a tone that told Garth this would be entirely business, "Garth, given your actions yesterday, or perhaps I should say this morning, to assist us in spite of our very real attempts to kill you-and before you ask, we would have done exactly that, given the chance-we have decided that it is best to reach a firm alliance with you and your zoid team. But this hinges upon one condition, that you make available to us all technical details for the Dragowing, that we might use them to develop a brand new zoid design that has been on the cards for quite a while now, which we have named the Hellfire Serpent."  
  
Weighing up the options in his mind, Garth eventually agreed, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," he declared, citing the old adage that seemed most appropriate, "the Chaos Storm are a far more important enemy than your organisation, and one with which I would not compromise to save my life, so I accept this pact of friendship between us with open arms."  
  
Whew, that was one heck of a long chapter for me to write, but I knew what needed doing in this chapter and I just about got it done without either losing my mind, breaking it into two or more chapters, or taking over a week to write it. At this point I find myself able to give you warning that this story is only the first story of what will become the Chaos Storm series, with the stories to follow being: Chaos Rampant and Storm's End.  
  
MP signing off, and don't forget to review what you've read. 


	11. Chapter 11: The Trap is Sprung

Okay everyone, this is Mercenary Pen here, I couldn't convince Van Flyhight to travel through time to be interviewed over the course of this chapter, so I got someone else, everyone, say hello to Raven! Audience is quiet. Sorry about that reception Raven, but to be perfectly honest you aren't the most universally adored character in the series.  
  
(Raven) It's quite alright, I don't particularly care about the opinions of such mediocre zoid warriors anyway. Now about that agreement we made earlier...  
  
What, the agreement that you got to watch your however many greats grandson in a zoid battle, and that I would leave the readers to guess themselves who you ended up marrying, mutters under breath as if they didn't know it would be her already!  
  
Well then, since you know I wouldn't dare break my word with you aside certainly not with that organoid of yours breathing down my neck, lets get on with the story.  
  
Chapter 11: The trap is sprung.  
  
Baron Danthorn was tired, his hard work and the happenstance that had given him fresh data on the Dragowing-notably its intervention in the skirmish that had been planned as a takeover of the Hellfire syndicate- had begun to pay off, and now the first attempt at a proper ambush could be made, he only hoped that the zoid team they were paying for this was as strong as they claimed they were.  
  
Garth was busy changing into the one outfit of formal dress that he had taken with him on moving out of his father's estates into the cramped quarters that was the base of the Paladin team. Why his father had invited several zoid teams for a formal dinner was beyond Garth's understanding, given that Professor Meyer was none too sociable to begin with, but the fact of the matter was that he had and that Garth would discover his father's motives soon enough.  
  
Adrianne was sorting her hair out in the next room, the occasional bump as the Hovercargo advanced on their destination little more than a mild inconvenience. Adrianne had decided to make a good impression on Garth's father if at all possible; it wasn't that there was a love interest between the two of them, despite the clumsy matchmaking attempts made by her father in yet another attempt at social climbing, and since her father was a dealer in custom-built zoid parts-something the Paladin Team needed an awful lot of given the rarity of their zoids-and was able to offer them to the Paladins at a reduced price, making only ten percent profit rather than thirty on his deals with the team. Or at least Adrianne didn't think there was anything permanent forming between the two of them, but right now she was having difficulty telling what she felt about anyone, so she would try and stay on the good side of all of her colleagues until she was able to make up her mind on this particular issue.  
  
Meanwhile, in the control centre of the Hovercargo, Mykkael was also dwelling on issues of some importance, how was he supposed to tell the rest of the team that he would have to leave, to return to the town of his birth to sit with his grandfather through the final stages of the slow but invariably fatal fever that the old man was suffering from, how was he supposed to walk out on his colleagues just as they had begun to climb the ranks, what did other people do when in his situation, he wanted to know, were their decisions just as hard or had some tribal demon of indecision from among his people come to torment him, at the moment, he mused, it was all he could do to keep the Hovercargo on the road rather than letting it careen across the desert, but under the circumstances he suspected none of the others would blame him, in fact the others probably knew there was something wrong with him already, given that he usually whistled whilst driving the transport, that's it, he thought to himself, I'll discuss it with the others first thing tomorrow morning.  
  
Jake was also taking some time out from his rigorous regime of physical training to do a bit of thinking of his own, how were the team going to like it when they found he had been using all of his surplus cash to pay off his old gambling debts, all the while running up even more where he just couldn't break the cycle. He dreaded telling them that he had placed all the team's petty cash on a single bet that they would win their next zoid battle-before they even knew what team they would be facing. Things weren't much better for the other three, he mused, both Garth and Adrianne were locked up in both their room and their thoughts, and Mykkael was driving the Hovercargo as if they were under attack from a battery of long-range artillery, and he was usually one of their better drivers for the massive transport.  
  
Finally, the sun setting behind them, the Paladin team arrived at the home of Professor Karyl Meyer, their Hovercargo being parked for them alongside the Gustavs and Whale Kings of many of the other zoid teams that had been mysteriously invited to this event, opposite them a number of jeeps and other small vehicles signifying that not only had numerous zoid warriors been invited to this event, but also members of the zoid battle commission, the Guardian Force, the armies of both the Guylos Empire and the Helic Republic and some of the faculty of the university of Geigolos, as well as others. The four of them, now all formally dressed, disembarked the Hovercargo and were escorted up to the house by staff that Professor Meyer had obviously hired in specifically for the event. Entering the house, they found themselves surrounded by the pilots of numerous zoid teams, with the guests ranging from "Slash" Viscera of the Viscera team all the way up to the entire Blitz team. The formal dinner, as it happened, wasn't anything like as formal as they had been expecting, taking the form of a self-service buffet. However, the main reason for this event was still to come, as Professor Meyer began to address his assembled guests.  
  
"Good evening to you all," he began, "I would first like to welcome you all to my home, whether you are one of the assorted academics, a career officer in the military, one of the executives of the zoid battle commission, a member of the renowned Guardian Force, or one of the numerous zoid warriors here this evening. I have called you all together this evening to present some recent findings on a matter which, I suspect concerns you all, the matter of newly discovered zoids."  
  
"The zoids that I speak of," he continued, "are the Panzer Dragons, mighty zoids of legend that are believed to be the most powerful of the early zoids, and also by the same argument the earliest of the true superpower zoids. I am able to tell you now, that the existence of these zoids was proven first almost two hundred years ago, when the base of the war criminal and renegade ancient Zoidian Hiltz was overrun by agents of the Guardian Force, just after the birth of the Deathstinger. Yes, I know that this might seem a little far fetched to some of you, but from the records I have seen, I must conclude that such zoids of legend as the Deathsoarer, the Deathstinger and many more of their ilk are as real as any of the zoids that you may have piloted. Anyway, back to the matter at hand, many of my fellow academics know that the mark of a Panzer Dragon is the lack of useless components built into it, and that no attempt yet to streamline the operating systems of a regular zoid to the level of a panzer dragon has met with success, all attempts having met with either no life in the first place or the critical overload of the test zoid, leaving little more than shards of charred metal as a testament to this failure. However, from my studies, I must surmise that Hiltz did not create his own Panzer dragons from scratch, but instead fused the zoid cores of Panzer Dragons to create his own zoids, this process generating zoids, which although powerful, have little endurance when using their ultimate weapons, resulting in zoids that are nothing less than a chimaera by nature."  
  
"Due to the nature of my discovery, it has been decided that the University of Geigolos will pay a reward, the amount of which remains to be confirmed, for the discovery of a pure Panzer Dragon, the pure strain being something that I feel I am qualified to confirm if it is there. It has been decided that anyone who finds such a zoid will become its immediate owner, although a loan of the zoid to the University of Geigolos for study purposes would be greatly appreciated. Also, before we adjourn to sample the entertainment that has been prepared for the remainder of the evening, we are still in possession of some of these hybrid Panzer Dragons, and these will be made available to any registered zoid pilot here who is currently without a zoid. The selections of these zoids, because it appears to be the zoid that selects the pilot rather than vice versa in the case of the Panzer Dragons, will be posted on the website of the zoid battle commission first thing tomorrow morning."  
  
The professor certainly hadn't skimped on entertainment, with jugglers, sword swallowers, fire-eaters and others to provide a certain sense of spectacle to the occasion, but Garth was drawn inexplicably to the virtual reality zoid arena that had been set up, proceeding to set himself up with a simulated Shield Liger and win against several opponents before he was taken down by Bit Cloud, whose skills with a Liger had never been in doubt.  
  
The next morning, following Mykkael's announcement that he would have to return to his home to be with his grandfather, Jake announced that the team had been selected for a zoid battle that very evening. "The commission are matching us against the Raven team tonight, in battle mode 0966, which states battlefield radius of ten kilometres, terrain is winding canyons and there's a flight ceiling of 1000 feet above the base of the canyon, with the canyon wall rising 2000 feet from the base on both sides."  
  
"Uh, I hate to tell you guys this," interrupted Garth, "but I think that we've just been set up to take a fall to someone. I know you won't have found anything about the zoid line-up of the Raven team in the ZBC database, I've already looked, but I got shown around their private zoid museum when they were busy trying to recruit me, well I say recruit but really all they wanted was to buy the Dragowing, they would never have used me in a zoid battle-but that's a whole other story, what I'm actually getting at is that they had, in their museum, almost a dozen functional Genosoarers and a single Genobreaker, so my bet is that they'll use at least one Genosoarer in the battle, and that's assuming that they keep those zoids to family members only-in other words, this time tomorrow our zoids may be dead!"  
  
"This may not be the best time to tell you about this but," Jake began hesitantly, "I bet all of the petty cash on us winning our next zoid battle, so if you can think of any way to pull off a victory here it would be a great help."  
  
"Jake, you're hopeless," shouted Adrianne.  
  
"Is there no way to keep you away from the gambling halls!" asked Garth, his head in his hands.  
  
"Hey, I'm sorry guys," Jake blustered, "only since we've won every battle so far this season I thought it'd be a sure thing, and besides I got us odds of 25:1 on that bet."  
  
Soon enough the evening came, and the remaining Paladins (Mykkael having left them earlier in the day) found themselves mobilising their zoids into a ravine, the Liger Zero, encased in the newly purchased Schneider CAS, should, they hoped, be able to withstand the power of even a charged particle cannon for just about long enough, the Ursazerk had received as much of a boost to its shields as they thought it could take, and the Dragowing would rely on its sheer speed and manoeuvrability as per usual to stay clear of any weapon the enemy brought to bear on it. At the other end of the canyon, waiting, were two Gojelos and a Genosoarer, their silver armour reflecting the light of the sunset into the eyes of the paladins. The judge landed, mild tremor shaking the ground beneath them as it landed.  
  
THIS AREA IS AN OFFICIAL ZOID BATTLE ARENA, WILL ALL UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL PLEASE VACATE THE AREA. BATTLEFIELD SCANNED-BATTLEFIELD SET UP. THE PALADIN TEAM VERSUS THE RAVEN TEAM- BATTLE MODE 0966. CHECKING WEAPONS COMPLIANCE OF BOTH TEAMS: THE CHARGED PARTICLE CANNON AND THE PLASMA CANNON MUST BE DEACTIVATED BEFORE THE BATTLE COMMENCES. DEACTIVATION OF ILLEGAL INTEGRAL WEAPONS CONFIRMED. READY-FIGHT!  
  
And with that the battle was soon underway, with the Ursazerk and the Liger Zero Schneider closing with the pair of Gojelos' quickly while both the Genosoarer and the Dragowing hanging back, waiting for the moment that Garth knew would happen when the odds would change, and the trap would be sprung.  
  
Suddenly, the Judge shuddered, and came to life with a completely different personality, that of the virus the Chaos Storm had created. Then, as if a weight had been lifted from its shoulders, the Genosoarer sprang into action, the organoid of its pilot fusing with it in a flash of light, and without further ado the Genosoarer lifted from the ground beneath it, its claws raking out with phenomenal speed to impact on the hastily raised shields of the Ursazerk, flooding the energy shield with a jolt of electricity before retracting its claws and moving on. Meanwhile, the Liger Zero advanced on its opponent at speed, easily side-stepping the missiles and beams of the Gojelos, before with the cry of "seven blade attack" from Adrianne, it slashed through one leg of the mighty zoid, bringing the zoid to the ground with a mighty crash. Okay, that was one down, two more to go. Meanwhile, in the cockpit of the Dragowing, Garth surveyed the situation unfolding beneath him, loosing a couple of volleys of laserfire at the Genosoarer as it circled, bringing its pulse-laser cannons to bear on the Ursazerk with devastating effect, while the futile bolts of the Dragowing blasted into the rocky ground beneath them, right where the Genosoarer had been less than a second before. It was no use, Garth sighed to himself, he would have to launch into the fray himself and so, with a roar from the pilot, the Dragowing picked up speed and entered the combat zone itself, only for the Genosoarer, following the defeat of the second Gojelos, to retreat to the entrance of the abnormally straight canyon, its foot-locks clamping down as it turned to face the zoids that were inexorably advancing towards it. In a flash, the Genosoarer straightened out front to back, the particle filter vents in the tail of this mighty zoid opening in sequence as the Genosoarer opened its mouth, the gaping maw of this zoid revealing the whole body cannon which made the Genosoarer such an infamous zoid. The Dragowing rushed forwards, its acceleration taking it past the firing area for the charged particle cannon, just as that cannon engulfed both the Liger Zero Schneider and the Ursazerk, those two zoids barely surviving the blast, their pilots being ejected from their cockpits at high speed just as the beam penetrated the shields of the Ursazerk.  
  
"You unfeeling bastard," shouted Garth, "I'll get you for this."  
  
"I'd like to see you try, it might prove entertaining to watch," came the emotionless reply.  
  
With that, Garth climbed until his zoid reached the thousand foot altitude which served as a flight ceiling in this battle, from there swooping into an attack run as his opponent hurriedly disengaged the foot-locks and particle cannon of his zoid, escaping with only minor laser scarring.  
  
Abruptly Garth found the Dragowing not responding to his commands as it increased speed and turned onto its side, wings pointing up and down as it executed a gut-wrenching high speed turn to bring the Genosoarer back into its sights, letting loose another devastating volley of laserfire, which the Genosoarer dodged the majority of with inhuman speed. Garth looked at the speed dial in his cockpit, noting that the speed had already reached Mach 2.4 as the Dragowing, almost as if it were possessed, continued to accelerate, evading the continuous hail of pulse laser blasts with ease as the sun set behind them. Then, in a flash, the Genosoarer was once more at the mouth of the canyon, its foot-locks down and its cannon pointing generally upwards. Yet again, the Dragowing approached it, Garth by this time having resigned himself to enjoy the ride. But this time, as the Dragowing approached, evading the incandescent beam of the mighty charged particle cannon, it did not release the usual withering hail of laser bolts, rather, its wings stretched to their full extent, blades built into the same assembly as the wing mounted lasers, extending as the Dragowing turned right on top of the Genosoarer, its downward pointing blade severing the tail of its opponent. As the Dragowing rocketed back down the canyon for another pass, however, the Genosoarer maintained position, charging its cannon all the faster now that the filters in the tail had been removed. With that, the Dragowing turned, pumping yet more laserfire into the Genosoarer, which then began to fire its charged particle cannon. This blast the Dragowing effortlessly dodged, its Speed now Mach 3.2, and then, its speed dropping, it turned back, allowing Garth to witness as the Genosoarer exploded under the unrestrained power of its very own cannon.  
  
The battle was suddenly over, and Garth, drained from the G-Forces that his zoid had put him through, collapsed, his zoid drifting back to the ground.  
  
Meanwhile, on the expansive peninsula which had housed the royal cup only three years before, something sinister was happening. A strange, yet somehow familiar man approached the wreckage of a saurian zoid, compelled to do so by a force which he could only begin to describe. Then, as he touched the wreck of the once mighty zoid, it began to glow, absorbing him into it. This zoid, which had lain dormant for three years, was almost ready to re-emerge and exert its newfound strength over the world.  
  
Okay, Raven, so how would you say that your descendant did in the heat of a pitched zoid battle?  
  
(Raven) My descendant, I think not, I disown him, to think that I might be related to such a weakling. However it was instructive to learn that the Genosoarer has another weakness, how did your little protégé manage that anyway?  
  
Its quite simple Raven, so simple in fact that even you ought to be able to understand it, the tail of the Genosoarer, as you know, contains the particle intake filters for the charged particle cannon, these, as well as filtering the charged particles out of the air, also regulate the intake of charged particles, keeping the intake of these particles to levels that the zoid can actually handle. Therefore, without the regulatory functions integral in the intake vents of the zoids tail the charged particle cannon is capable of overcharging in the period normally required for a single charge, which can lead to a charged particle blast on the scale required to melt through the armour of the zoid 's mouth, leaking into the cockpit and damaging the command systems of the zoid, including, in this case, the self destruct system that was built into the zoid to keep it out of the hands of others.  
  
(Raven) Still, if a zoid pilot with an organoid cannot avoid a damaging blow like that, he does not deserve to be related to me. It's all her fault.  
  
Whose fault was that exactly? I'm sure our readers would like to know who you have a grudge against, wouldn't they.  
  
(Raven) It's all Riess's fault, if she hadn't gone and seduced me and weakened the blood of my family with all that emotional stuff. Raven realises exactly what he has just said How dare you! You've just orchestrated this entire scene to force me to reveal what I made you promise not to reveal. You scum, I'll get you for this!  
  
Raven draws fighting dagger  
  
(Raven) Now your days as a mercenary are over, prepare to meet your doom!  
  
Raven springs at Mercenary Pen, dagger in hand, as Mercenary Pen starts writing  
  
Raven, you know, you really shouldn't hold a dagger that way round dude.  
  
Raven stops and looks, he is holding his dagger by the blade, the hilt pointed at Mercenary Pen. He is now wearing a pastel pink tutu, and his organoid has metamorphosed into a fluorescent pink organoid  
  
Okay Raven, if you don't mind I'll take that knife, since you obviously don't know how to use it properly. Now if you hurry there's time to visit your young relative in the hospital before I throw you back into the time machine ready for you to save Van's hide from Hiltz yet again, you know, business as usual.  
  
(Raven) I'll get you for this, shadow, attack!!!  
  
No, you won't, Raven, turns towards oncoming organoid, knocks it out of the air with a flying kick and throws a weighted net over it now were you planning to come quietly or will I have to take even more drastic measures.  
  
(Raven) You win this time, punk, but remember, we shall meet again, and then you will not be so lucky.  
  
Raven skulks off, trying hard not to be noticed, still wearing the pink tutu, dragging his organoid behind him.  
  
Okay folks, that's that little problem sorted, and yes I do freely admit to having well and truly orchestrated that little scene back there, so I'm pretty much guilty as charged. Ah well folks, I've not got any time left, so I shall see you next chapter.  
  
P.S. Yes I can be a heartless little /53hole sometimes, its not forbidden in my contract. 


	12. Chapter 12: The Evolution of a legend Pa...

Hey folks, its Mercenary Pen here, and I hope you've enjoyed the previous eleven chapters, and suggest that if you haven't you should either go back and read them or find a story more to your liking, because if you've read the last eleven chapters and really dislike the story that much, its probably because you don't get on too well with my personal writing style, and to be perfectly honest that won't change all that much.

Also, some of you are probably wondering why I've been dragging characters out of chaotic century just for the purposes of character torture, one of the main elements of a high quality piece of fan-fiction, I am now required to admit to you guys that its cause I just don't have the heart to truly release my evil streak on characters of my own devising, yet-that particular heart is arriving tomorrow, I ordered it three weeks ago.

Now let's get back to the story, capisce (for those of you who have not knowingly dabbled in a variety of european languages that is pronounced capeesh).

Chapter 12: The evolution of a legend (part one).

On the plateau of the royal cup, an energy field had formed, surrounding the wreckage of a mighty zoid, which only three years before had shaken the world with its power, but now lay almost completely forgotten in the dust, a useless wreck, until now. Sitting nearby, watching over this energy field was a young boy, barely in his mid-teens, his name, known to few, but respected after a fashion anywhere it was known, was Vega Obscura. Now all he had to do was wait, wait for the wreck that had been the Berserk Fury to be born again, this time in a form that would match to Vega's strengths as much as it would to the worst nightmares of his ultimate rival, Bit Cloud of the Blitz team.

Meanwhile, the Paladin team were facing a team who had in the past few weeks become their greatest rivals, the King team, whose trio of Iron Kongs faced them on the battlefield. The Paladin team's selection of zoids was, in such a battle as this, still fixed while their fourth member looked after his dying grandfather, and so with a battle mode of 0982 the Ursazerk, the Dragowing and the Liger Zero stood upon the field, their armour glinting in the twilight.

The leader of the King team, Steve King, nicknamed Tarzan for his fascination with Iron Kongs, was a man whose ego was not lightly dented, mostly because to do so was to ask for a serious pounding, either on the battlefield from his zoid team or in person if you didn't have a zoid. However, recently Jake had performed a specialist potential measuring test on the Ursazerk, testing his skills with it against a computer simulation of the zoid that matched its capabilities most closely, the Iron Kong. This test, although not without flaws, had resulted in the victory of the Ursazerk in the battle simulator, leading Jake to consider himself, with the sixty five percent synchronisation he had already achieved with his zoid partner, to be a superior zoid pilot to just about any of the Iron Kong pilots out there. In short, if there was an Iron Kong pilot around, Jake became completely insufferable.

However, that is too long a story to tell, and to cut it short, Jake managed to offend the King team to the point where they decided that they must give the job of pummelling the Ursazerk into the dust top priority, and now they were about to try it for real. Their zoids represented three of the latest high-performance variants on the standard Iron Kong design, and were armed as follows:

The first, armed with a pair of retractable wrist-mounted blades and a single shoulder-mounted rocket launcher was the Iron Kong XS type, a zoid that specialised in close range combat, and was the zoid of Steve King himself; the second was the Iron Kong RX type, a version of the zoid designed for mid-range combat and armed with a pair of shoulder-mounted plasma disruptor cannons, blocky three-barrelled energy weapons whose remodulating pulse frequency could render most energy shields ineffective, while the weapons themselves possessed most of the firepower of a long-range buster cannon when charged to maximum power and this was the zoid of Liam Brandt; and thirdly and finally came the Iron Kong X-9, a prototypical model of Iron Kong, whose long range arsenal, in the form of a rack of high-explosive miniature cruise missiles, had in tests proved at least the match for a force of Gojelos', demonstrating the ability to take those mighty zoids down before they were in range to target their long-range weapons, and had also proved to be the match for most standard airborne zoids, and under the control of the plot Neville Grant, a skilled bombardment specialist, this zoid would probably test the Paladins to their limits and quite possibly beyond.

Then, snapping out of his reverie, Garth noticed the arrival of the judge capsule that would, as ever, adjudicate the match. As the judge continued its spiel, going through the usual rigmarole, the entire Paladin team breathed a sigh of relief, given that it didn't seem that the forces that made up the Chaos Storm would attempt to hijack this battle. Then, with a word from the judge, the battle commenced.

Jake, having waited impatiently for just this moment, charged forward in the Ursazerk, rearing up as he came face-to-face with Steve King, the Ursazerk and the Iron Kong slamming together with such force that all the combatants watching winced, anticipating that both parties would leave with bruised arms from the jarring impacts their zoids would undergo.

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Chaos Storm organisation, a new matter was being discussed by those that made up the council of chaos, a matter of some delicacy.

Altyle broke the silence that had followed Baron Danthorn's report, "If Vega Obscura wishes to use his soon-to-be-evolved Berserk Fury he would be forced to sign on with the Chaos Storm, there is no way that the Commission would permit such a zoid to participate in official zoid battles, mostly because Vega Obscura can only control the Berserk Fury up to a point, he cannot shut off the charged particle cannons of his zoid beyond the ability of the Berserk Fury to re-activate them itself, and given that the Commission has recently clamped down on the weapons systems that can be used in battle, any zoid with a charged particle cannon is forbidden to participate under their new rules, therefore it is clear to me that if we sent an emissary to make a deal with Vega, he would have no choice but to join with us or surrender his zoid to the Commission, in short, since I know he would not give up on his partner, would not be capable of giving up his partner due to his bond with the Ultimate-X organoid system of the Berserk Fury, we cannot lose!"

At that precise moment the Paladin and King teams were locked in tense combat, their zoids a near perfect match for those of the other team, Jake was in fierce combat against Steve King and his close combat model Iron Kong, Adrianne faced off against the medium range firepower of Liam Brandt's Rex type, as the RX series was known, and that left Garth to tangle with the cruise-missile equipped Iron Kong of the remaining pilot, Neville Grant. Suddenly Jake roared over the comm-system "That's enough Monkey-Boy, time to show you the true strength of the bear, Strike Laser Claws!" and with that the front paws of the Ursazerk, which currently stood upon its hind legs, glowed gold with the build-up of laser energy, launching out in a titanic one-two blow into the stomach of the Iron Kong that stood before it, rending its foe until the once-mighty Iron Kong was almost cleaved down the middle.

Above them Garth flew his zoid in what seemed like a dance, destroying the cruise missiles of the Iron Kong that he faced with a veritable hail of rapid fire laser bolts, taking the trouble every now and then to scare his adversary into submission with a feinting head-to-head assault, usually just as the Iron Kong was replacing its rack of cruise missiles from a stock on top of the Guysack of the King team, which was being used as a mobile artillery platform. Then Garth considered things anew, thinking, if I keep up with this I'll make him waste his entire supply of missiles, but I'll also wear down my zoid, especially since the sun has set meaning I have a limit on my auxiliary power supplies because they come mostly from the solar panels in the wings of the Dragowing. Then, reaching a decision, Garth acted, only to pull out of his dive as Jake stole his kill, blasting the magazine of cruise missiles beside the Iron Kong, engulfing it in the fire of its own warheads, knocking it straight out of the battle.

At that moment Adrianne had her hands full, trying desperately to evade the plasma disruptor fire of the remaining Iron Kong, she swerved and sidestepped with her zoid until she was almost collapsing from dizziness, many times attempting to counterattack, only for her firepower to impact against the energy shield that her opponent had fitted. In the distance she witnessed, through the corner of her eye, the defeat of each of the other two Iron Kongs, but she stood no chance of pulling off a similar victory at the moment.

Garth's voice crackled over the comm system, "Adrianne, fall back to the transport and modify as you see fit, I'll keep this guy occupied while you do so. If you modify to Panzer Jake's gone back to the transport already, he can bring the transport into range to drop you off."

At last, Adrianne thought, a chance to actually take this guy, now which modification armour to choose, yes, I will go for the Panzer. Within seconds she was aboard the hovercargo, her zoid clamped securely to the modification deck.

"Activating Liger Zero Panzer modification armourâPanzer CAS completeâLiger Zero Panzer returning to main deck, Zero Panzer ready for deploymentâAdvance the Hovercargo."

With that the Hovercargo began its advance, picking up speed while still looking slow, ponderous and ungainly, suddenly the side hatch swung open, the Liger Zero Panzer with its green armour sliding out to take its first shot. This version of the Panzer armour, like every other piece of combat materiel that the Paladin team owned was cast from the versatile Ultimium alloy, however, in the case of the Liger Zero Panzer, the objective involved in replacing the traditional armour had not been to increase the durability of the already heavily armoured Panzer, although this version was ever so slightly more durable than the original, but to decrease the sheer weight of the armour to within safe levels, thus decreasing the chances of the zoid overheating to far safer levels. Immediately Adrianne focussed upon her objective, the defeat of the remaining Iron Kong, which was barely managing to keep the Dragowing at bay, despite the fact that Garth wasn't trying very hard to destroy the Iron Kong that remained, having racked up enough individual points in the last few battles that he could afford to go easy on a few opponents, and let his team mates catch up with him a little. Then, out lanced the pair of double beams from the hybrid cannons of the Liger Zero Panzer, overwhelming the already active shielding of the final Iron Kong to achieve victory for the Paladin team.

Vega was doing his best to remain calm, but how much longer was the Berserk Fury going to take to evolve, he wondered. Already the energy cocoon of the zoid had expanded to melt most of the wrecked Ultrasaurus which would otherwise have been the final resting place of the Berserk Fury, its form now clearly a perfectly hemispherical dome which glittered red with silver lightning cascading across its surface periodically, speaking volumes about the powers at work in the creation of this new zoid, even in its silence. In the background Vega heard the mournful howl of the wind as it whistled its way across the plain on which he stood, the steady clattering of a Gustav the only noise that intruded from the wider world to which Vega would return soon enough. Suddenly, behind Vega, there was a freak gust of windâno, the downdraft from the landing of a large airborne carrier zoid. Vega turned, before him stood a large jet black Whale King, upon its back a familiar man, Altyle himself.

"Vega," began Altyle, "you've kept well I trust. Listen, we need to talk"

Okay everyone, this is Mercenary Pen here, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and aren't too cheesed off that I turned it into a two-parter, just I think you'll like the evolution of certain zoids, although I will now take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who belongs to the "Ultimate-X's don't evolve" school of thought, but to be realistic with you, any zoid can evolve further, external organoids just speed up the process. Now all I have to do is work out the arsenal modifications for the Berserk Fury and the other zoid due to be evolving during the second half of this chapter and I'll be fine, hope you guys keep until the next chapter, see y'all round dudes, MP signing off.


	13. Chapter 13: The Evolution of a legend Pa...

Chapter 13: The Evolution of a legend (Part two)

Vega gasped as the cocoon of energy surrounding his zoid vanished, revealing a zoid whose appearance had not changed much, although its size had doubled and it had developed the manoeuvring thrusters previously seen on nothing much except Genosoarers, a tail mounted cannon of some variety, and the assault drill assembly on either side appeared to be of a modified design. Vega muttered to himself, "You are no longer the Berserk Fury, now you are the Kaos Fury, a zoid more chaotic than chaos itself. Then, with a prodigious leap, he sprang into the rapidly opening cockpit of this mighty black and red zoid, closing it behind him as he prepared to learn the true capabilities of his zoid on a training run.

Meanwhile, the Paladin team were on route to participate in the Dragonhead City annual Battle Royale, a melee battle involving any zoid team that could make it, in which the last zoid standing won. Other teams due to be participating this year were the Blitz team, the Champ team, the Sabers team, the Viscera team and the mysterious Rangers team, which appeared to consist of four zoid pilots, brother and sisters if the rumours were to be believed, who had won four of the Panzer Dragons that Garth's father had been studying and now used those four zoids in battle.

The Battlefield was a stretch of the red river valley, directly outside the city of Dragonhead, and including various types of terrain, including the ruins, now almost picked clean, where the Dragowing and various other Panzer Dragons had been found. As the Paladin team set up, they took the opportunity to scout out the battlefield, ready for the beginning of the Battle Royale in just under an hour's time. In addition to the teams that they had already seen while still on route, they now saw the Lightning Saix' of the Lightning team, complete with the groundbreaking new arsenal that Adrianne's father had developed for the design: a pair of energised blades, much like those of a Blade Liger; a pair of Strike Laser Claws; improved boosters; and a pair of diagonally-backwards facing Pulse Cannons. Also visible were the red Gunsniper and Blade Liger of the Flügel team, and at the far end of the valley, past the modified Rev Raptors of the Viscera team stood the Elefender and the Stormsworder which under the careful control of the ex-Back Draft warriors Stoner and Pierce made up the Renegade team. Out of the corner of his eye, Garth saw something, just for a moment, but it looked to be a red and black zoid of a reptilian build, its design, unrecognisable due to the speed at which it had disappeared.

The remainder of the hour passed quickly, seeming to pass in the blink of an eye, and by its end all of the participating zoid pilots were arrayed along both sides of the cliffs that bordered the red river valley, their weapons ready for action. Finally, the judge capsules that would preside over the competition landed, each armed with the pulse-lasers that were supposed to help them fend off any unauthorised competitors, rule-breakers or illegal judge units that were in the area.

"WELCOME," sneered the central judge in the tone of voice that was previously used only by the dark judges of the Back Draft group, "TO THE FIRST BATTLE ROYALE OF THE CHAOS STORM ORGANISATION, THERE ARE NO RESTRICTIONS, READY, FIGHT."

"What!" exclaimed Garth, "the Chaos Storm are taking over a battle royale?"

"It certainly looks that way," replied Jake, whose voice betrayed the bitterness he felt following the near destruction of his zoid following a battle that the Chaos Storm Organisation had taken over.

Then, with a mighty shriek, the black and red Kaos Fury sprang over the cliff to land on the ground in front of them. Several of the zoid pilots in that area shrank backwards at the sight of this massive and ferocious zoid that now stood before them.

Over the intercom came the voice of the renowned zoid pilot Bit Cloud, "Hey, why does that zoid look like the Berserk Fury?"

"Because that is the zoid from which it evolved," Vega replied, "Now Bit Cloud, it is time for a rematch, defend yourself."

And with that the Kaos Fury lurched into action, its assault-drills glowing as they charged with energy, but the Liger Zero in its Jäger form was just as quick off the mark, running back to the Hovercargo to modify its armour. Meanwhile, cheated of its preferred prey for a while, the Kaos Fury started to annihilate some of the other zoids in the battle royale, quickly dispatching the zoids of the Viscera and Sabers teams.

Jack Sisco of the Lightning team, however, did not realise the full capabilities of his opponent, immediately spurring his team into an attack run against the Kaos Fury, growling, "you may have the sheer power to defeat most adversaries, but do you have the speed to race the lightning?"

Within moments the three modified Lightning Saix were immobilised, knocked out of the action by the slipstream of a charged particle beam, launched through the tip of the zoid's tail, which they barely evaded.

"Such misguided fools," Vega remarked in a pitying voice, "if only they had known the true power of the Kaos Fury then perhaps they would not have mounted such a futile attack against me."

Garth, meanwhile, was in the midst of a conference with various other teams engaged in this battle royale, amongst their numbers the Champ, Blitz, Renegade and Flügel teams. "So that's settled then, we'll all focus on taking down the Kaos Fury first and then we'll finish the battle royale properly," he said.

"Agreed," Naomi of the Flügel team replied, turning her Gunsniper around to bring its tail-gun to bear on the Kaos Fury.

"You got it," growled Stoner, as he turned the ponderous Elefender to face its target.

"Harry, we're agreeing to this, so that probably means you are too," Leena shouted over the comm system, checking once more on the ammo of her Gunsniper.

"Whatever you say, my Leena," came the voice of Harry Champ, sounding somewhat the worse for wear (he had by this stage began to work out that any time Leena told him to do something it was only because she liked exploiting him).

"Okay," Garth continued, unwilling to let the situation with Leena and Harry escalate in the middle of the battlefield, "lets plan out our strategy, the Champ team, the Elefender and the Ursazerk are to provide fixed position firepower to lock the Kaos Fury down, all airborne zoids, both the red Blade Liger and the Liger Zero Mirage, and the Shadowfox are to keep moving, providing interference for the other zoids, including sensor blankets from both the 'Fox and the Mirage, meanwhile both Gunsnipers are to provide a continuous barrage from their tail-mounted rifle to punch through any shields that the Kaos Fury might deploy, and finally the Liger Zero Panzer, which has just reached the battlefield, will provide the heavy firepower to take the thing down. Okay, move out."

As one the Iron Kongs, the Elefender, the Gunsnipers and the Ursazerk opened fire, the airborne forms of the Dragowing, the red Phoenix-type Stormsworder and the hawk-like form of Jamie's new zoid, the Falcyon, began to circle, beginning their attack runs. On the ground below them, the Shadowfox and the Liger Zero Mirage began their work, scattering both smoke and false grenades to throw the targeting systems of the Kaos Fury off their mark, also, in combination with Leon's red Blade Liger providing a moving bombardment against Vega's zoid, Adrianne feeding everyone precise targeting data as the Kaos Fury ignited its thrusters and tried to evade the crossfire, then, with a roar, the Liger Zero Panzer fired its Hybrid cannons, followed seconds after the recoil from its cannon attack by the full power of its burning big bang missile attack, augmented by the use of EM pulse missiles to lower the shields of the Kaos Fury if the Gunsnipers did not have the necessary firepower for the job. Instantaneously the shields of the Kaos Fury were engaged, absorbing the full force of the Hybrid cannon assault before they fell to the precisely targeted gunnery of the Gunsnipers, but then, the unexpected happened, as Vega, rather than trying to dispose of the missiles that were bearing down upon its position, engaged all three of its forward facing charged particle cannons, bringing them to bear even as the cannons charged, on the Liger Zero Panzer, one to skim over its back and the other two to hit either side of it, cutting off any hopes of escape, and these fired, moments before Garth ordered an immediate all out assault on the Kaos Fury, taking it out of commission even as the missiles from the Liger Zero Panzer hit.

Vega's command system, although at the head of a vastly superior zoid, failed in short order, but the damage had been done, almost destroying Bit's Liger Zero, even in spite of its recently upgraded Panzer conversion armour.

The battle royale went as normal from there on, with Brad's Shadowfox and Jamie's Falcyon winning the competition for the Blitz team, even with Bit and the Liger Zero out of the picture entirely, soon followed by Leena and her Gunsniper as it fell to a barrage from the Elefender.

"Well that was a good battle, 'Fox," Brad remarked, receiving an affirmative whine from his zoid in response, "See y'all next time, and then we'll see what your zoids are really capable of."

Bit Cloud was feeling shaken, he had never felt quite so helpless at any point since he became a zoid warrior, his zoid, the Liger Zero, stood helpless in the hangar of the Hovercargo, the charred remains of the Panzer conversion armour strewn across the decks, looking pitifully weak after the scorching they had received from the charged particle cannons of the Kaos Fury. Suddenly, acting on an inexplicable compulsion, Bit left his room in the Hovercargo, heading for the hangar bay of the transport zoid. Once there, he accessed the other conversion armours of the Liger Zero, removing them from their casings upon the modification deck, using the cranes within the Hovercargo to place them in a heap around the scarred Liger. Once he had done this, scattering the Zero, Schneider, Jäger and even the newly purchased Mirage armour on the ground around his Liger, he simply waited, watching in silence as his zoid slowly but surely began to glow, finally encasing itself in a cocoon of energy. Somehow, Bit had known exactly what would be needed for the evolution of the Liger Zero, and what it would evolve into, giving him the chance to prepare for its new form, the Liger Omega.

Back at the Paladin base, Garth was feeling restless, wondering how the Chaos Storm, now his sworn enemy following their latest escapade, could have become so powerful so quickly, how they could have discovered such a mighty zoid as the Kaos Fury and how they could take control of judge capsules to hijack battles with so few traces of their presence left afterwards. He snapped out of his reverie, coming to his senses as his zoid called to him silently, its call echoing in the corners of his mind, telling him that Mykkael had returned, and with company.

Meanwhile, the executive committee of the Zoid Battle Commission were in session, joined for the first time since they were founded, by top-ranking members of the Guardian Force. The topic for discussion, the recent activities of the Chaos Storm organisation, and the steps that would be taken to defeat them.

"Okay, everyone, you know why we're here," began the chairman of the executive committee, Marius van Heldar, "the Chaos Storm organisation appears to have begun a reign of terror, one which we cannot track to its source or even defend ourselves against, this will change. Our main problem appears to be some sort of glitch or virus in the programming of our judge capsules which is being used against us, meaning that whereas we made preparations to deal with an outside threat, in the form of alternate judge capsules, we have now been outmanoeuvred thoroughly by an enemy who may even be within our own ranks."

"But how can we hope to combat such a threat?" inquired one of the junior executives.

"That," continued the chairman, "is going to be the tricky part. First, we must take our current judge capsules out of service for a full overhaul and program review, replacing them with members of the guardian force who have been briefed on the adjudication of official zoid battles. Then, second, we must begin a thorough analysis off our own staff, all of whom, including yourselves will be investigated with a view to finding any links we might have within the Zoid Battle Commission that lead to the elusive Chaos Storm organisation. Thirdly and finally, we will be upgrading all zoids belonging to the commission, in case we ever have to face the Chaos Storm organisation in pitched battle. Are there any questions?"

The room was silent as the assembled executives struggled to take in what they had been told, but then, the entire room burst out with questions.


	14. Chapter 14: The end justifies the means

Chapter 14: The end justifies the means.

In the past week, the Chaos Storm organisation and the newly invigorated Zoid Battle Alliance, as the cooperative effort of the ZBC and the Guardian Force had been dubbed, had put their plans into action, with the new Guardian Force judges finding themselves in the middle of pitched battle as often as not.

However, it was not for nothing that this seeming stalemate of a war was going on, instead, this was likely to become one of the most important struggles in the history, because unlike most wars, it was no struggle between vastly similar governments, but between regimes whose effects on the population would have been vastly different.

One of the temporary judges gritted his teeth. His name was Jonathan Baxter and he was surveying the battleground to be from the cockpit of his zoid, a modified König Wolf, whose arsenal was based upon that of the Command Wolf Juggernaut upgrade, but at least twice as powerful, and with less of a speed decrease than that of the Command Wolf Juggernaut when compared with the conventional Command Wolf.

From the cockpit of his Wolf, he could see everything for miles, whether it was the buzzards that circled over the carcass of a dead Jackal to the West, or the rapidly approaching Hovercargo to the North, which he assumed carried the Blitz team, or even the black form of a Great Whale King that was releasing armies of zoids to the South-east...

Jonathan did a double take, "darn," he muttered to himself, "of all the battles the Chaos Storm could try to intrude upon they had to pick mine!"

Quickly, he got in touch with the Blitz Team, ascertaining that they were ready and willing to take out this swarm of ex-Backdraft scum. They mobilised quickly, with the Shadow Fox, the Falcyon and the Gunsniper taking up primary positions on the battlefield, and then, through the side hatch of the Hovercargo came the form of a large White Liger, of a design that, while reminding him of the famous Liger Zero, seemed slower, heavier and more deadly at first glance, sporting what appeared to be a single turreted Hybrid Cannon, a quadruple-barrelled belly cannon and a pair of badly concealed Missile Pods.

Meanwhile, the Chaos Storm units were fully mobilised by this stage, and they looked formidable, even from a distance, with their numbers being made up of Red Horn, Strike Viper, King Gojulas and Nightstinger Guysack units, with the dominating form off a Mad Thunder at their centre, its four heavy cannons gleaming ominously.

The Mad Thunder, according to legend, was the best zoid that the engineers of the Helic Republic had been able to develop to match the capabilities of the imperial Death Saurer and other zoids with charged particle cannons, and this Triceratops-like zoid, as well as having the ability to mount four of the mighty super-cannons that it shared with Gordos and Gojulas designs, had some of the thickest armour, and one of the most ferocious temperaments, of any zoid known to man. This zoid, in the hands of even a novice pilot, would be easily match most elite pilots in both skill and power, and in the hands of an expert, would prove deadly.

Then, the two forces clashed, the combination of Blitz team and Guardian Force units being almost shattered by the chest-mounted heavy Gattlings of the King Gojulas units, whose upright forms resembled nothing so much as mechanical imitations of the Japanese film monster, Godzilla.

But this did nothing to stop the Liger Omega from Charging at the enemy. Bit Cloud, at the helm of this mighty Liger, set off immediately in a charge whose very speed, even without the use of its boosters, belied the weight of this super-Liger, which was now shrugging off any enemy shell that hit it, regardless of calibre. At once, Bit Cloud activated the Ion Boosters of his zoid, launching it into the air, and as he let out the cry of "strike plasma claws", the front paws of the Liger energised with superheated blue-white plasma, and the down-stroke of the Liger Omega cleaved bodily through the forms of seven zoids.

The Shadow Fox was also putting up a brave fight, somehow dancing through the Heavy cannon fire of the Chaos Zoids to down a large number of the Red Horn, Strike Viper and Nightstinger Guysack units with the wildly oscillating form of its Laser Vulcan cannon, although it was unable to deal vast quantities of damage to the King Gojulas units and the Mad Thunder at the centre of the enemy formation. Leena's own assault was short-lived to say the least, given that while her heavy duty missile barrage downed two of the King Gojulas units, she had run out of ammunition by the end of it, and her zoid was knocked out by a remaining Guysack on its way to reload.

In his König Wolf Juggernaut, the adjudicator for the battle that should have been happening around now, between the Blitz and Kaiser teams, the Kaiser team still not having shown up, was fighting for his very life, dodging his zoid between the progressively tougher zoids that remained as the weak and unlucky pilots were weeded out. With decisive force, he trained his cannons on one of the twelve remaining zoids at this point, six of them King Gojulas units, and five of them Red Horns, with the Mad Thunder launching its deadly barrage from the centre of the force, and as he pressed down on the trigger, his target, a King Gojulas opened its mouth in a shriek of rage that physically shook the ground beneath them, paralysing all of the zoids around it as they fought to keep their footing. Meanwhile, that particular King Gojulas aimed its twin super cannons and fired, both shells hitting the Liger Omega but doing little damage, if any, to its Ultimium Alloy armour, and then, the moment passed, and raising its Hybrid Cannon, blasted the rest of the way through the armour of the damaged Gojulas, because whether it was a king of its type or not, it would not survive against the mighty Liger Omega.

Very soon, only the armoured form of the Mad Thunder stood against them, firing the four Plasma Particle Cannons that had replaced its traditional Super-cannons and shared the exact same calibre as the guns they had replaced. But whatever the Blitz Team threw against this mighty zoid, its armour seemed to be capable of taking all they were launching at it and then some, and yet, even with its array of Plasma Particle Artillery, it could barely dent the armour of the Liger Omega, whose own armour was designed to withstand even the heaviest shelling, even when energy weapons were brought into action. Quickly, Bit Cloud retreated to the Hovercargo, using his team-mates to cover him, and there was fastened to the newly reinforced modification deck, switching to the mighty armour conversion that was the Omega Schneider arsenal, whose blades were as many and as long as those of the Zero Schneider, but were augmented by small concealed blades in the shoulders and hips of the red and white Liger, positioned to protect the legs from any attempt to chop them off; also the Omega Schneider possessed the next level in booster technology, with the bulky forms of twin Polarised Ion Boosters protruding from its back. Given the weight of the Liger Omega, this zoid could no longer be deployed via the catapult deck of the hovercargo but instead had to be deployed through the side hatch again, where it engaged the new boosters, with its main body blades out to either side of it, hurtling towards the ineffective defences of the Mad Thunder, which promptly deployed its final secret weapon, a massive energy shield of the type sometimes fitted to Whale Kings, which deflected the first attack of the Liger Omega, only for Bit Cloud to snap the Buster Slash down, using the newfound ability of his forward blades to absorb the shield energy of the Mad Thunder, channelling it into powering his other blades, thus cleaving even the upgraded Mad Thunder in two.

Meanwhile, in the underground headquarters of the Chaos Storm Organisation, another battle was taking place, this time in the simulation chambers that allowed pilots to test their skills without dealing serious damage to their zoids. The teams involved were: 10 Gunsnipers, 5 Iron Kongs, 25 Guysacks and 10 Hel Digunners, versus a single Modified Rev Raptor. The Rev Raptor pilot was a particularly shady character about which very little was known, other than that his name, or at least the pseudonym by which most knew him, was the Shadow Blade.

The many executives of the Chaos Storm watched his battle as it unfolded, watching as the force arrayed against him set up defensive lines to defeat him as quickly as possible. However, his Rev Raptor, blades unfurled, charged straight for the enemy lines, its speed like no other zoid of its type as it sliced through the sides of any Hel Digunner that got in its way, before opening fire on the Guysacks with the twin machine guns that the Shadow Blade had fitted to its chest, mowing them down as quickly as was possible.

Next were the Gunsnipers, which had turned their backs to him in order to use their sniper rifles. The Shadow Blade responded to these by activating a pair of smoke dischargers fitted to his zoid, then charging, under cover of the smoke, straight for the Gunsnipers, evading the shots from the Iron Kongs behind as he cleared the smoke, using his boosters to quickly get close enough to the Gunsnipers that they served as cover for his zoid against enemy shots, before carving and clawing his way through the assembled Gunsnipers, whose feeble close range capabilities made them easy targets now that the Shadow Blade had penetrated their defensive ring.

Then, to finish the job off, the Rev Raptor charged towards the remaining zoids, which were mostly the Iron Kongs, although two Guysacks and one Hel Digunner had managed to escape his wrath thus far, and so these zoids opened fire on the Rev Raptor that hurtled towards them, many times barely missing their target as it ducked under their missiles and shells or swerved at the appropriate moment, before it finally closed with what few zoids remained, gunning down the Guysacks and Hel Digunner, which had little room to manoeuvre in their present location, before activating its deadly tesla unit, adding electric shock capacities to its blades and claws, which ripped straight through the enemy Iron Kongs, paralysing even such mighty zoids with the first incision made. Eventually, only the customised Rev Raptor was left standing, its blades and claws glinting evilly in the simulated sunlight.

The Shadow Blade then emerged from the simulator cockpit, running over to his Rev Raptor, from which he detached the interface cable, which led to the simulator unit, and then he noticed the commotion around him.

Walking towards the Chaos Storm Executives, he moved with an air of supreme confidence that spoke volumes about him, especially because his feet, even in victory made no sound whatsoever.

The executives broke the silence, "Well Done, your skill in our little test shows that you should be capable of the task we will be setting you, the assassination of a number of elite zoid pilots and high ranking officials within the Zoid Battle Commission and the Guardian Force...These people are to be defeated by any means necessary..."


	15. Chapter 15: The battle for the skies

Chapter Fifteen: The Battle for the Skies

Garth was exhausted, after a long day working to redecorate the base; he had slumped back in a chair in the kitchen and was busy drinking a mug of coffee when the phone rang.

It was his father, Karyl Meyer, calling to crow about his latest discovery. Finally, a zoid pilot had uncovered a true Panzer Dragon.

"You know what this means, Garth, you're gonna have to take this guy on, see whether true-blood or hybrid Panzer Dragons are stronger in combat," the professor enthused, blinded by the research potential beyond the ability to see how dangerous such a battle might be to both participants, even under the strict regulation of the Zoid Battle Alliance, for when both participants were as heavily armed as Garth... it didn't bear thinking what damage even the winner might receive.

The pilot who had uncovered this pure-strain of Panzer Dragon was a man by the name of John Dragoon, who at the age of 22 had lost against Vega Obscura and the Berserk Fury in the Royal Cup three years before, but then he had only had a Redler to work with, not the might of a Panzer Dragon of any shape or form.

Quickly, the battle was arranged, Garth agreeing to face John in the head-to-head mode that was Battle Mode 0983, with arsenal changeover capacity allowed simply because there was no real demand to justify a head-to-head mode without arsenal interchange allowances, however, as neither the Dragowing, nor John Dragoon's Light Wing Dragon possessed any alternative arsenals, the battle would be a straightforward aerial dogfight, with the winner gaining both individual and team points, and the loser gaining absolutely nothing, except perhaps the respect of the winner.

The two were soon at opposite ends of the battlefield, Garth's father having agreed to pay all repair costs, given as this was in effect an experiment. Before Garth stood the mighty form of John Dragoon's Light Wing Dragon, a pureblooded Panzer Dragon (although, Garth thought to himself, pure-blooded was not the right term for a zoid, given that they did not bleed).

Garth surveyed the imposing form of the Light Wing Dragon, its six Gattling guns the most visible signs of its power, hovering above the sand by means of its vectored boosters, even its virulent shades of orange and blue not looking out of place on a zoid this...weird, Garth thought. And indeed, to the casual observer used to more majestic zoids like the stormsworder, the liger or the Command Wolf, the Light Wing Dragon did look weird, with a fishlike tail and masked head (which was crowned by a unicorn-like horn), a single leg consisting of three black balls with blue armour plates suspended between them, vicious claws facing both forward and backward forming its foot.

In the background, a Stormsworder hovered, its pilot the judge of this match, and a man who fervently hoped he could stay clear of the assaults that these two mighty engines of destruction would unleash. By agreement the pair were fighting without weapons restrictions, both having access to the superweapons in their arsenals that could incinerate most other zoids within seconds.

With an almighty screech from the Light Wing Dragon, the battle commenced, both zoids quickly picking up speed as they circled the battlefield, both pilots trying to spot their opponents weaknesses in the opening moments of the battle. Then, with an uncanny silence that many would find disturbing, the Dragowing accelerated still further, reaching a speed of Mach 3.7 and swinging in with its segmented bat-like wings mount a sonic-boom attack against the Light Wing Dragon, at the last moment dropping a remote detonated limpet bomb onto the Light Wing Dragon as it executed the twisting sonic-boom procedure made famous by the Stormsworder (although it had been the Reddra and the Redler that had pioneered this attack).

John Dragoon winced inside the Cockpit of the Light Wing Dragon, the degree of speed and manoeuvrability demonstrated in that one attack were breathtaking to say the least, and what was more, the Dragowing was still accelerating, its speed now Mach 3.85 as it roared around the battlefield, its mobility barely decreased by its high speed. In the space of a moment, one hand on the controls of his zoid, he armed the devastating homing lasers that were the core of his arsenal, stabbing his thumb down on the trigger and watching as the lasers lanced out, the angle of their beam following the Dragowing through a breakneck series of aerobatics until it finally caught up with the Dragowing, scoring along the serpentine tail of the zoid until he shut them off, just before they reached the cockpit of the zoid.

But, in what seemed an impossible coincidence, the Dragowing was barely damaged by even the highest intensity that the Light Wing's homing lasers could achieve, its Ultimium alloy plating having an inherent immunity to energy weapons, as well as being more effective than most against the physical impacts of conventional shells, its only major weakness (other than killing the pilot himself) was the lateral slash of blades, and that depended on getting close enough to use them.

Of course, John Dragoon, having been away from civilisation for the last few months, did not know about the strengths and weaknesses of Ultimium alloy- instead he mused, this Guy has a tough zoid, but mine is tougher, so I'll keep him on his toes until I find his weakness. And with that he opened fire with the four forward facing Gattling cannons of the Light Wing, swinging into position behind the Dragowing as it made yet another pass. But the bullets seemed to bounce right off the armour of the Dragowing, and further, Garth chose that point to detonate the limpet bomb that had attached to one side of the Light Wing's tail, the explosive force of which jolted the Light Wing from its alignment, burning halfway though the armour of the zoid in that area to leave a blackened crater-like pit in the armour of the zoid.

Damn, John thought to himself, after quickly checking that they were still alone, he must have dropped that on me when he made that sonic-boom earlier. If that's the way he wants to play this, though, I'll just have to be ready for him, and with that John ceased fire, climbing out of the wake of the Dragowing as it accelerated away, its speed now Mach 4.1, and its manoeuvres so violent that they would be fatal to the vast majority of zoid pilots.

The Dragowing furled its wings, using its underside boosters to flip it through 180 degrees as it rolled, then fired the wingtip lasers that were the cornerstone of its own integrated armament, watching on as, with near inhuman accuracy, the Light Wing Dragon dodged the coruscating bolts, charging up its own homing lasers in an attempt to remove the threat that the Dragowing's laser cannons posed, but at that moment, the wings of the Dragowing dropped to point at the ground, their lasers ceasing fire as the blades that the lasers were focussed through the joint-section of opened and energised, sheer momentum keeping the Dragowing in the air as it charged forward to use its devastating blade attack.

But then, with a last burst of strength, John Dragoon turned the Light Wing Dragon on its side, extending and energising its own blades to cut through the belly of the Dragowing, which they did, the Dragowing's wing position having denied it the ability to dodge at the last, and, its power spent and its command system frozen, the Dragowing plummeted to the ground, its speed falling off rapidly as its wings swung up, locking in their fully spread position so that Garth was able to glide his zoid to the ground manually at the last.

From his Stormsworder, cowering at the edge of the battlefield, the ZBA judge declared, "The battle is over-r-r, the w-winner is John Dragoon of the Dragoon Team" and then nosedived into the ground having fainted.

After the battle, knowing that both Garth and his opponent, John Dragoon, were likely to have drained their energy reserves, having put everything they had into that airborne duel, Garth's father, Professor Meyer, had laid on a banquet inside his personal Hovercargo, allowing both warriors to relax and recuperate in the posh dining room (basically a banquet hall with chandeliers and everything) that the professor had had fitted inside his transporter zoid. And thus it was that Garth Meyer and John Dragoon found themselves face to face, each wearing silk shirts and formal trousers (but having been spared the encumbrance of a full Tuxedo this time, given as it was only an informal occasion), with a few colleagues of the professor in attendance.

Hesitantly, the two began talking to one another, each conscious that their only other choice would be talking to some of the assembled faculty members of the university of Guygalos, a bunch of men whose only talking points appeared to be their opinions on the latest theories in various academic fields, how difficult it was getting research grants nowadays, and other such aspects of their careers.

"Good battle earlier," John offered as a conversation starter.

"Yeah, shame I lost though, your zoid doesn't seem to be quite so fast as mine, but I suppose it works more on a basis of control, rather than sheer speed and assault power," Garth replied.

"To be honest," Garth continued, "it was probably a good thing that I lost because my skills may be good, but I've not pushed myself much in the last few weeks. My battle today is gonna be just the inspiration I needed to push myself further- and I'm gonna need to the way those chaos storm creeps keep coming."

"Man I hate those guys," John Dragoon offered, "it was bad enough three years ago when they called themselves the Backdraft group, but at least back then they had to make do with the same zoids as everyone else for the most part, now they're causing havoc with zoid after zoid that hasn't been seen before, and its time that someone put a stop to it!"

With a decisive stride, John said his goodbyes and headed for the hangar, reclaimed the Light Wing Dragon, and launched into the sunset, soon becoming little more than a memory and a speck upon the horizon, for now...


End file.
